Return of the Sith
by SithMasterJosh
Summary: Book 2 of the New Empire Trilogy, the story continues as Darth Arisin and his sister, Emperor's Hand Leia Organa, expand their powers and realize that the war may be over, but conflict will never die.
1. Fire and Ice

**Chapter 1: Fire and Ice**

"Black Sun has not been performing up to my master's standards, Vigo Yar." As the shadow clutched the vigo's throat, small tentacles of blue energy snaked their way through his fingers and up the Zabrak's face. The vigo grunted in pain against the assault.

Yar struggled to speak. "That—that wasn't our fault! There," he gasped for air, "there were _Jedi_!"

"Do you want me to tell my Master that the great Black Sun, the biggest and most influential criminal organization this galaxy has ever seen, failed to assassinate a single senator because two Jedi _Padawans_ were guarding her? Is that _really_ what you want me to tell him?"

"No!" Yar choked out, shaking his horned head vehemently. "T-tell him that—that we just need a little more time. And—and we'll take twenty-five percent off the price!" Yar stared hard at the figure clutching his throat with watery eyes. This lone black-clad man had managed to take out both of his fierce Togorian bodyguards soundlessly; their bodies still lay crumpled on the floor of his personal residence.

The vigo watched a faint smile spread across the shadow's hooded visage. "That is news my master will be pleased to hear." The shadow released his grip on the man's throat. Yar fell to his knees, hands at his neck. He looked up at the dark figure.

"Who are you?" he asked hoarsely.

"I am Darth Sidious."

* * *

><p>"Black Sun? They've proved themselves useful in the past, Master. Why destroy it now?" A woman with hair like fire sat across from Emperor Palpatine.<p>

He snapped his eyes open. "It is not your place to question my commands," he said sharply. "The Rebellion has been crushed; the Empire no longer has use for their services and I do not wish for their resources to be used against us. I have just ended a war, Jade. I won't risk for another to spring up in its place."

"Do you really believe Black Sun would wage war on the Empire? They're a criminal organization full of thugs and thieves, not a political body."

"Of course not," he told her. "But it would not be the first time I have seen a war _backed_ by an organization. Your duty is to carry out my orders, Jade, not ask why." He had reason to believe that Black Sun informants were responsible for the latest series of disasters. The Rebels were proving to be more difficult to mop up than he had previously foreseen. It had been over a month since the war ended and countless operatives were still unaccounted for.

Since the Rebel defeat at Endor, more than fifteen Imperial ships had been sabotaged, leading to heavy damage or complete destruction in all cases. The death toll was well over one hundred thousand since the end of the war. Of the fifteen incidents, only three concluded in the arrest of the Rebel responsible. And of course none of them would surrender their fellow operatives or who supplied them with the proper clearance codes and false identities that allowed them to serve on the ships. One Rebel, caught by Lord Arisin's own hand, however, could prove to be useful, if he could be cracked.

The fiery-haired woman had lowered her head in submission. "I'm sorry, Master. I know it's not my place to question you." She raised her head to look her master in the face. "How is the Organa woman coming along?" She hoped to hear how dreadful she was, that she was utterly untrainable and a complete waste of effort; she wanted to hear that the princess was weak and that Mara Jade was the only _true_ Emperor's Hand.

"The Force is strong with her." Jade didn't like the sound of that. "She is advancing marvelously." He paused a moment, smirking in satisfaction. "Is that jealousy I sense in you, Jade? I feel your anger toward my newest apprentice. Do not worry, Mara, you are still my favorite pet." She released a miniscule sigh of relief. "For the moment," he added wickedly, catching her off guard. He emphasized those three words. Embarrassed, she stood and again lowered her head.

"Of course, Master. I didn't—I mean, I don't…"

"It is natural to feel jealousy. Just mind where you vent your frustration," he instructed. "If you two are to work together on the Black Sun mission, I can't have you killing her, now can I?"

Jade snapped her head up. "Master?"

"You heard me," he said coolly. "And you have your orders. Leave me."

Unsuccessfully hiding her annoyance, she nodded and left the office in silence.

Moments later, Leia Organa stepped through into the large office, the same office where, barely a month before, she had pledged herself to the Emperor's teachings, vowing to use her new powers to bring justice to the galaxy.

"Ah, Princess. Do come in. Sit." Palpatine motioned to one of several chairs arranged in front of his desk. He sat in his throne, bathed completely in darkness. All Leia could make out were his yellow eyes, which caught the light at times and looked as though they glowed with some eerie internal light.

"Who put the piranha beetle in her jumper?" she asked, gesturing with her head over her shoulder where Mara had exited moments before.

The Emperor chuckled softly. "In a sense, you did," he said.

Leia gave him a questioning look but didn't ask.

Behind the Emperor, an enormous panoramic window looked out over the city's Government District. She could see the squat mushroom shape of the Senate several kilometers away. Despite the late hour, the regular hustle and bustle of Coruscant showed no signs of slowing down. Leia herself had, over the last month, found herself requiring less and less sleep. Like the Emperor, she usually chose to replenish her energies through quiet meditation. She found it suitable to clear her head and leave her feeling much more refreshed than sleep.

Leia stepped around one of the chairs and sat. "So, you wanted to see me, Your Majesty?" Though in the beginning, she had been encouraged to call him "master," and indeed, reprimanded if she did not, Leia and the Emperor had agreed that, while a certain level of formality must be upheld at all times, "Your Majesty" suited him just as well as "master."

"Indeed," said the shadow before her. He was briefly illuminated by a passing speeder then plunged instantly back into darkness. He preferred to keep his office darkened when he wasn't working. It made meditation easier, allowing him to more easily focus on navigating the currents of time and see the future. "You have made tremendous progress since allowing yourself to be trained," he began. "You have excelled in your basic Force exercises and are showing considerable skill as a swordsman." He gestured to the hilt that hung at her left hip. Once belonging to Jedi Master Mace Windu, she now carried it with her everywhere, per the Emperor's instruction. More than once, she had been ambushed by assassin droids within the walls of the Imperial Palace. She knew they had been sent by Palpatine, meant to hone her reflexes and keep her mind wary and prepared for anything.

Leia nodded in thanks to the compliment. "I have my brother to thank for that. When he's here in the palace, we spar for hours on end. It's really been helping me to have a sparring partner to practice with when you aren't available. I think it has probably helped him, too."

The Emperor nodded. "Yes. Lord Arisin is a great deal self-taught. I imagine he has shown you many clever, unorthodox techniques."

"Oh, yes, he has." Leia spoke very passionately now. She had grown to enjoy her saber training the most. When she sparred, she found herself almost transcended; the whole world melted away and all that existed was her blade and the Force flowing through her. "I've found that my style is unique to myself. Your instructions are the foundation, of course, but I've found myself incorporating aspects of Luke's style into my fighting as well. And I've even come up with a few moves of my own on the fly." Leia still refused to call her brother anything other than "Luke." Both Lord Arisin and the Emperor had accepted that quickly. Neither seemed bothered by it anymore.

"The ability to spontaneously invent new techniques is the mark of a true master of any craft." He leaned forward into the dim light as he spoke. Leia could tell he was as passionate about the subject as she was. "When you can mold a style into something of your own, it is a wonderful thing. I imagine you are quite proud. And well you should be. You are a powerful warrior. Now," he said, lacing his fingers together and sitting back, again melting into the shadows, "on to the reason I have called you here. We seem to have gotten somewhat sidetracked.

"As I said, your progression is nothing short of astounding. I think it is time for your first real mission. It seems a pity for your power to be sitting idly by as the universe goes on around you. This will mark your first mission as my Hand." Seeing Leia's surprised but pleased expression, he quickly added, "Your training is far from over, but I feel you are ready to be given a job. Consider it a real-world lesson."

Immediately curious, Leia asked, "What's the mission? When do I start?"

Pleased at Leia's eagerness, he chuckled. "I am pairing you up with my best Hand, something I have never done previously. You, along with Mara Jade, are going to bring the criminal organization Black Sun to its knees. You will decapitate it and bring me the head. And by that, I mean Ragnor Breyac." He stood, resting his fingertips on the desk. His pale hands stood out against the dark wood of the desk like ghostly spiders. "Black Sun has been useful to the Empire in the past, but it has been a thorn in my side for too long and I want it gone. The Empire will not associate with a criminal organization a moment longer. It was enough that we had to use them during the war. But now we know that they are at least partially to blame for the series of recent attacks on Imperial ships. They have supplied the remaining Rebels with the intelligence necessary to pull off such malicious stunts."

Leia was thrilled at the prospect of brining down the largest criminal organization in civilized history. The group had been a major underworld organization for millennia. She was glad to be finally able to bring the galaxy the justice it deserved.

"You will meet Jade in the Eastern shuttle bay at 0730. That is six hours from now. I suggest you rest now while you can.

"You will be provided plain traveler's robes to conceal your identity. Doubtless your face is well known across the galaxy. I feel I must warn you that Jade will not be pleased to work with you. As it is, she is jealous of the extra attention I am giving you. Show her that you are worthy of her respect. Do not make me look foolish by allowing yourself to be killed."

Leia knew the Emperor well enough not to take that last comment as a joke. "Of course not, Your Highness. Thank you for this. I can't tell you what it means to me that you feel I'm ready for something of this magnitude."

"The Force is strong in your family," the Emperor told her. "You all progressed very quickly. Your powers were to be expected." He gestured toward the door. "We are finished. Rest well, Princess."

Leia stood, bowed politely, and left the office. The Emperor closed his eyes, wrapping himself in the shadows, and meditated.

* * *

><p>To Leia's annoyance, she awoke from her meditations a full hour before her alarm was set to sound. She opened the blinds. The sun was just peeking up beyond the far off horizon. Another beautiful Coruscanti day. She knew there would be no going back to sleep, so she used this time for practice, a habit she picked up from Luke.<p>

With a flick of the wrist, she triggered a small storage compartment on the far side of her room and extracted two spherical training remotes. The remotes were dotted with a dozen facets, each able to shoot a non-lethal stun bolt.

She called her lightsaber to her hand and activated the remotes, which immediately spread throughout the room with the hiss of their maneuvering jets.

Keeping her eye on the one directly in front of her, she allowed the other to drift behind her.

_Wait for it_, she told herself. She tightened her grip on the still deactivated lightsaber. _Wait for it_. She narrowed her eyes until they were the barest of slits and bit her lower lip in anticipation. She felt a sudden twinge of warning. _Now!_ She snapped her eyes open, activated her saber, and expertly deflected two stun blasts from the remote ahead of her, deftly bringing the blade over her right shoulder to deflect a blast from the second remote aimed at her lower back. The entire move took less than a second.

Sensing their misses, the remotes changed positions. She concentrated on the hum of her violet blade, barely registering the remotes' movements.

She dove as a stun blast tore through the air her head had been occupying. She completed her roll and sprang to her feet, deflecting three shots aimed at her midsection. The remotes changed position again.

One positioned itself two meters above her head as the second sped past her in a gray flash. She flattened herself to the ground as the remote behind her released a flurry of shots, deactivating her saber as she hit the carpet. Immediately, she rolled to the right to avoid a shot from the remote directly above her. The synthetic rug fibers melted and filled the air with an acrid scent.

She continued to exercise this way until her alarm went off. Invigorated, she felt pleased with herself. She had deflected almost every shot, having only been struck twice. After replacing the remotes in their compartment, she headed to the 'fresher. Her exercise had lead to profuse sweating and a smell that she equated to a wet bantha.

Refreshed after her sonic bath, she quickly dressed and clipped her lightsaber to her belt. Grabbing the robes she intended to change into later, she headed off to meet this Mara Jade.

During her first week, she'd been approached by a palace technician who had input her retinal pattern into the Imperial database, foregoing the need for passcodes of any kind. She was able to walk to the shuttle bay completely unhindered by any closed doors.

The normal swarm of mechanics in the bay was lost in the early hour. There was a lone figure standing beside a very beat-up ship roughly the size of the _Millennium Falcon_. She had a mane of fiery red hair and an expression to match. It was the same woman she had seen leaving Palpatine's office the night before. Leia saw that the Emperor was right; judging by her sour expression, Jade looked less than pleased at the prospect of working with someone whom she considered competition.

"You're late," said Mara hotly.

"No," said Leia, adopting a nonchalant tone. "According to my chrono, I'm right on time. See?" She brought a wrist up for the other woman to see.

"I don't remember asking you what time your chrono said it was," Jade said venomously. "When you're with me, we go by my time, and by _my_ time, you're late." She glared at Leia with her emerald eyes, her hair shining in the bright morning sun which was quickly rising over the city-planet.

"You've got the morning disposition of a rancor with a sore tooth, you know that?" said Leia with a scoff.

Mara looked as though she were going to snap back with something but held her tongue. "Just get aboard," she said finally after giving Leia a good glare.

"Thank you," said Leia sweetly, giving a curt smile. She stepped heavily up the boarding ramp, somewhat amused at the other woman's animosity towards her. She had a feeling that the amusement would quickly wear off. She wasn't too worried about it, though. She could be nasty when she wanted to be. She was a politician, after all. "Nice ship," she called down from the top of the ramp. "Pick this up in a junk shop on Tatooine?" She felt the anger roll off Mara in pulsing waves.

"It just so happens I built this ship, _Princess_, so I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't insult my handiwork. It's got it where it counts." Mara trod angrily up the ramp, scowling at Leia.

Leia stepped aside as Mara marched past her towards the pilot station. She took one last look at the hangar before the ramp rose and sealed with a whine.

"So where are we going, anyway?" she called out. When she didn't receive an answer, she made her way up to the pilot station. "I said—"

"I heard you," said Mara, cutting her off. She was seated in the captain's chair and prepping them for launch. "I just don't respond when someone carelessly calls out instead of speaking directly to me like a normal human being."

"I'm sor—"

"I don't know what you're used to, Princess," Mara cut her off, "but I'm not one of your loyal subjects." She turned around in the pilot's chair to face Leia. "Nor am I one of your Rebel cronies. On my ship, we go by my rules."

"Right," said Leia. "Of course. I didn't mean to be rude."

"Let's get a few things straight, Princess: First off, I don't like you. In my eyes, you will always be Leia Organa, Rebel traitor and spoiled princess.

"Second, my master has room for _one_ top Hand, and that's me," she jabbed a thumb at her own chest. "I don't know what he's doing with you, testing me, maybe, but be assured, at the end of the day, when a job needs to be done, he knows _I'm_ the one who'll get it accomplished.

"Third, I don't give a _frak_ who your father is. Or your brother, for that matter. Don't think your fame wins you any points with me. If you want to somehow prove yourself to me, and therefore, the Emperor, you need to perform every job I give you on this mission flawlessly, whether it's taking out the security system of some vigo's palace or taking out the trash.

"The rules on my ship are as follows," she ticked them off on her fingers, "You don't ask me for information. I _give_ you information I feel you need to know when you need to know it. There is no yelling aboard my ship. If you need to talk to me, you use the intercom or you find me yourself.

"The most important rule: I am the captain of this ship. What I say goes. Period. If I ever want your opinion, which I promise you, I won't, I'll ask for it. Is everything I've just said clear or shall I have the ship transcribe the recording for you?" She raised an eyebrow in question.

Leia made a face as though she had just smelled something foul. "No, you were quite clear."

"Good," said Mara, who turned back round to face the forward viewport for takeoff. "Now, sit down, strap in, and shut up. We're going to Nar Shaddaa."

* * *

><p>Darth Arisin gazed down at the startlingly green planet slowly revolving far below him. He stared out from the bridge of the <em>Executor<em>-class Star Dreadnaught _Manticore_, a sister ship to the _Executor_, which had been tragically lost in the Maw with all hands. The verdant planet outside was Naboo, home of his late mother. Soon to be…nothing at all. Pity.

"Sir, we've just received word from _Chimaera_. The HyperGate has just jumped from its last rest point. It should be here within ten minutes."

The Sith turned to face the man speaking to him. He was tall, lanky, and over all unimpressive. One would be unwise, however, to judge him on his sagging cheeks and proper Coruscanti accent. One needed only to look as far as his pure white uniform and golden epaulettes to know that this was a great and powerful man.

"That is excellent news," said the Dark Lord. "What's the word on the Emperor's arrival?"

"Word from his shuttle came twenty minutes ago. It should arrive shortly before the HyperGate."

"Good," said Arisin. "I'm sure he'd hate to miss the arrival of his newest toy." He turned to the planet. "Besides, Naboo is his home planet. I'm sure this is important for him."

The man in white stepped up next to him. "Yes, I recall when His Majesty was the senator for this planet. I was an ensign at the time," he recalled, "though the Republic didn't have a navy to speak of. I was stationed above Coruscant, essentially directing traffic. I seem to remember this planet had once been blockaded. Palpatine helped the queen—oh, what was her name? She became a senator eventually. Rather famous, actually."

"Amidala," Arisin offered.

"Amidala, yes, that's it. Well, anyway, Palpatine helped her plead her case to the Senate. Everyone in the galaxy was following the story after that."

"Palpatine became Supreme Chancellor because of the incident," said Arisin absently.

"Yes," said the man in white. "You know your history."

Arisin smiled. "Not as well as you'd imagine, Admiral. As it happens, Padmé Amidala was my mother. I've been researching her in the Imperial historical database."

"Y-your mother, sir? Oh, of course! Everyone knew Senator Amidala had a hidden love. Many assumed it was Anakin Skywalker. They were known to be very close. Very taboo, you know, a senator and a Jedi. After she died, it was even rumored that she was pregnant…" He trailed off, suddenly realizing what he was saying.

"I guess the rumor mills were right, for once," said Arisin. "Piett," he said suddenly.

"Sir?"

"Did you ever know my parents?"

"Me, sir? No," the Grand Admiral said. "As I mentioned, I worked in traffic control. Then, once the Clone Wars began, I was promoted and given command of my own ship, but I never had the occasion to meet the Hero Without Fear. Not until well after he became Darth Vader, that is."

"Excuse me?" said Arisin. "Who?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir. It's what your father was known as throughout the galaxy during the Wars. He and Kenobi were the two most famous people in the universe for those three years."

"Really?" asked Arisin, clearly surprised. One more thing Uncle Owen had forgotten to mention.

"Absolutely, sir. They were well known for bringing success to missions everyone thought to be impossible." There was an excitement in Piett's voice that made it sound as though he was recalling stories of childhood heroes. "It was they who rescued His Majesty when he was kidnapped during the Battle of Coruscant. Your father killed Count Dooku that day _and_ landed a crashing ship that had broken in two. I saw the ship plummet into the atmosphere myself and I never would have thought it possible that anyone could land that thing and walk away from it, but he did. Before his accident, your father was an extraordinary man. For everything that Darth Vader became, Anakin Skywalker was a true hero in every sense of the word."

"So I've heard," said Arisin. "Pity he failed everyone who ever loved him." There was an awkward silence. Piett had no response. After a moment, Arisin spoke again. "How is the _Manticore_ treating you? I haven't seen you since your promotion."

After the loss of the _Executor_ with almost all crew aboard, Piett had been reassigned to command the _Manticore_.

"It's a wonderful ship, sir. And a truly top-notch crew. I'm proud to command her. But if I'm speaking frankly, sir, nothing will ever replace the _Executor_, I'm afraid." Arisin didn't need the Force to detect the sadness in his voice. "Has an execution date been set for that kath hound Katarn, sir? I would very much like to be there when he draws his last breath."

"He'll spend a little more time with the interrogators, but I'll let you know," Arisin told him. "The Emperor has a personal interest in his sentencing. Katarn was also responsible for giving the Rebellion the plans to the first Death Star. I have to live with the knowledge that I pulled the trigger that ended so many lives, an act which has no excuse, but I never would have known where to shoot had he not stolen the readout in the first place."

"I think the Empire has forgiven you, sir. It was another lifetime ago. The man standing before me is not the boy who launched those torpedoes. And, sir, if it's not out of line for me to say so, you were fighting for what you thought was right. I personally feel that, regardless of your ideology, regardless of your beliefs in relation to anyone else's, if you truly believe in something, you should fight for it."

Arisin looked Piett in the eyes. By all rights, this man should fear him and his terrible power. But instead, he was actually _consoling_ the Sith Lord. "Admiral, you are one of a kind," Arisin told him. "It's no doubt why your crew is always the Empire's best." He placed a hand on Piett's shoulder. "Thank you."

"No thanks are necessary, sir. I truly believe you are one of the best things to happen to the Empire since its formation. Lord Vader gave us a brutal, violent image. I think you will bring the Empire the glory it was meant to have."

"I will do my very best. As the Emperor said, with the war over, we are now in a new era. A new Empire. The galaxy will soon be a different place."

"I believe that, too—" Piett was interrupted when a young officer said something in his ear. "Ah, thank you," he said. "It seems," Piett said, turning back to face Arisin, "that the Emperor's shuttle has just landed. Shall we go and meet him?"

"I think we'd better. After you, Admiral," said Arisin, sweeping his hand toward the door.

When the pair reached the hangar bay, it was full of thousands of troops, all in perfect formation awaiting the Emperor's exit from his shuttle. The shuttle, the same ship that had taken Arisin, Piett, and the Rebel Kyle Katarn to Coruscant after the destruction of the _Executor_, sat on the gleaming, polished floor, sealed as though waiting for the two to arrive.

On cue, the moment Arisin and Piett approached, the boarding ramp unsealed and lowered. Arisin saw the robed Emperor standing at the top, leaning not so heavily on his twisted ebony cane, looking down at the pair.

"Lord Arisin; Grand Admiral Piett, good day," he called down.

"And to you, Your Majesty." Piett bowed respectfully.

"Welcome aboard, Master."

The Emperor's cane clunked on the ramp softly with each step. "Has the HyperGate arrived yet?" he asked as he reached the hangar floor.

"It will be here momentarily, Your Excellency," said Piett.

"Excellent, excellent. How are you taking to your new command of the _Manticore_, Admiral?"

"Well, sir, as I was telling Lord Arisin a short while ago, this ship has a wonderful crew, but I'm afraid it's no _Executor_. Her loss was truly devastating."

"Yes, yes, it was tragic." The Emperor nodded. "How many were lost, Admiral?" asked Palpatine sympathetically.

"All told, thirty-three thousand four hundred and twenty-two, a number that will stick in my mind as long as I live. The only ones to survive were the fifty-two crew in the Installation, Arisin, and myself. And," he hesitated a heartbeat, "the Rebel, Kyle Katarn."

"They died bravely in the name of the Empire," said the Emperor.

"Excuse me, Your Majesty, but they were murdered needlessly by a Rebel for a lost cause," Piett corrected, much to his own chagrin. "They had no choice. There was nothing brave about it. The war was over. They died as a result of one man's desperate act of cowardice." He hadn't meant to speak out like that, especially against the Emperor himself, but remembering the _Executor_'s loss brought fresh rage to the surface.

The Emperor stared hard into him, remaining deathly silent. Finally, he spoke. "Admiral, you are absolutely right, my apologies. But I assure you, they did not die in vain." He turned to Arisin. "Katarn finally relinquished his knowledge. We now know the identities of over a hundred hidden Rebel operatives. His execution will be carried out within the week. He's very strong in the Force, but far too dangerous to be trained."

Piett looked anxiously at Arisin. "Master, understandably, Grand Admiral Piett wishes to be present for the execution."

"Of course," said the Emperor. "I would have been very surprised if you didn't, Admiral. You have every right to witness the end of the Rebel's life."

"Thank you, Your Majesty. I do not normally enjoy the sight of death. Indeed, I've spent the majority of my life trying to keep people _alive_. But this man deserves death. He murdered my crew."

"I understand, Admiral. Now," he said, changing the subject, "shall we make our way to the bridge?"

"Right this way, Master," said Arisin, leading the way. They walked the length of the hangar, passing by the thousands of troops, officers, and crew at attention on either side of them.

When they arrived on the bridge, all action ceased. Everyone snapped to attention in the presence of the Emperor.

He held up a pale boney hand. "At ease, gentlemen. Resume your duties."

Though the bridge crew went back to work, it was considerably quieter now that His Majesty was on deck.

Palpatine stepped over to the viewport and looked down at the planet rotating gracefully below, his pale face reflected like a ghost in the transparisteel. "Ah, my one-time home," he said softly to himself. "Pity my homecoming is under such grave circumstances." He turned to Piett. "Open a channel to King Vera."

A moment later, "Channel open, sir." As he spoke, the life-sized image of an old man in ornate robes appeared before the Emperor.

"King Vera. It is a pleasure to see you again," the Emperor said pleasantly. "It must be fifty years ago now that you helped me become a Senator after Hego Damask's most unfortunate death."

"Palpatine," spat the old king. "Don't think that that knowledge doesn't haunt me my every waking day. How could you do this to your own homeworld? We are hiding no one! Search for the Rebels. But please, lift the blockade! We haven't had a ship in or out in three weeks. People are starving; medicine is in short supply! Our entire economy is crumbling!"

Palpatine smiled warmly. "Oh, the blockade shall be lifted, King Vera. Yes, it shall be lifted very soon. In fact," he said, looking out away from the planet. The HyperGate had just arrived. "Consider the blockade officially lifted."

* * *

><p>Leia sat in the small sleeping compartment aboard Mara's ship, the <em>Jade Sabre<em>. As she stared at the plain durasteel hull plates, she thought of Han for the first time in a long time. After he died, she had felt so lost. For the first week, she cried herself to sleep every night, missing him and hoping she would soon wake from the awful nightmare she knew she must have been having. There was no other explanation. Certainly, Luke hadn't _really_ killed him. Soon she would wake and find Han there next to her, snoring softly. Chewie would be in the next room, tinkering with Threepio, who certainly would be in pieces for the hundredth time. Artoo would be making comments as he watched. But she never woke, realizing that _that_ had been the dream, and that Han's death, at the hands of her brother, had been very real. She had lost the love of her life forever. Never again would she hear him say, "I love you." She'd never see that lop-sided grin or sneer at one of his inappropriate comments. She missed him so much.

It had been almost a month since her upsetting realization. While it was still painful, her training was helping her to get on with her life. She had forgiven Luke. She understood that Han would never have joined the Empire; submission wasn't in his genes. He would have been executed for treason no matter what. Knowing that didn't ease the pain, but it gave her an understanding of the situation that allowed her to ultimately forgive her brother, as much as she had hated him at the time. She knew that deep down, it had been difficult for Luke to kill a friend. Despite the hard exterior he now projected, Leia knew he still had very strong feelings for those he cared about. Had she been put in the same situation, Leia was almost certain she couldn't have done it. She just wasn't strong enough to do what was right when it conflicted with what she wanted.

Vaguely aware of the winding down of the hyperdrive engines, she continued to think of Han until Mara's voice broke through the intercom.

"_Alright, Princess. It's party time. Put on your robes. We land in five minutes."_ The intercom cut off and Leia did as she was told.

She had been provided with a very tattered Askajian wool robe. What looked like small burn holes peppered the sleeves and back; clearly the garment had been used and had seen better days. The robe was a very dark brown and, judging by its cut, had originally belonged to a tall man with broad shoulders. The Emperor hadn't given her the robe's history. She had merely woken to find it draped across the back of one of the lounge chairs in her chambers' sitting area. She flipped up the hood, which smelled unpleasantly sulfurous. She wrinkled her nose at it. She doubted it had been cleaned since its previous owner had lost it. Small pieces of burned material were still stuck in the wool fibers. She pinned the robe closed using plain clasp and moved out to the disembarkation area to wait for Mara.

Before long, Leia heard the repulsors fire and the landing gear extend. Subconsciously, she put a hand to her hip and felt the lightsaber concealed within her robes. It gave her a sense of reassurance. A moment later, Mara, in a similarly nondescript yet considerably newer robe, came hurrying down the hall towards where Leia stood waiting.

"Oh, street hag," she said to Leia, sneering at her tattered wrappings. "Good look for you."

"Thanks. I love how yours really accentuates your rugged, manly features," Leia fired back. "Maybe we can find you a willing mate while we're here frolicking amongst the slime."

For the second time, Leia's retort silenced the other woman, who was looking increasingly sour. She lowered the ramp and departed from the ship without as much as a glance at Leia.

As soon as the ramp hit the permacrete, the smell hit Leia hard in the face. It was a smell unlike any she'd ever encountered, like cuisine from a dozen different worlds all rotting together under a hot sun. The only thing she could compare it to was the trash compactor she had leapt into during her escape from the first Death Star, only much, much worse. The stench invaded her nostrils and seemed, like a greasy film, to stick to her skin. For a moment, she retreated further into her hood, preferring the toxic sulfurous odor to the rancid fumes of Nar Shaddaa.

"C'mon," yelled Mara from the ground. "We don't have all day, Princess. You'll get used to the smell. Hurry up!"

Against her better judgment, Leia made her way down the ramp, which closed and sealed itself the moment she stepped foot on the awful Hutt moon. She looked up into the night sky and saw the Hutt homeworld, Nal Hutta, a toxic and polluted swamp that hung in space like a rotten fruit. The moon's planetary shield caused the planet and the stars to shimmer slightly, as if it, too, were repulsed by the smell. Leia shuddered to think what Nal Hutta must smell like.

This being the Hutt system, she would need to be extra cautious not to be recognized. She had a bounty on her head the size of Jabba's bloated corpse and places like this were always crawling with bounty hunters. They oozed out of every crevice like the fetid sewage that ran through the gutters.

"So where do we go?" asked Leia.

"I'm not exactly sure," Jade admitted. "I was able to find what sector of the city the vigo lives in, but we'll have to find alternate means of pinpointing his exact location because my sources could only get me so far. We need some local intel." Mara was looking all around, as if looking for something.

"Where do you propose we start?"

Mara gestured with her hooded head. "Right there."

Leia looked. It was a cantina, several centuries old by the looks of it. An animated sign hung over the entrance; a stormtrooper helmet that suddenly split into four pieces. She read the sign. "'The Headquarters'? Charming. So you think he'll be in there?"

"I would bet very large sums of money that he isn't, Princess," Mara snapped. "But someone in there may know where we can find him." She was getting increasingly annoyed by the princess' naïveté.

"Right. And they're just going to hand over the information?"

"Of course not. We'll have to pay through our backsides. But we aren't a couple of two-cred bounty hunters, Princess. We have the full financial backing of the Empire. Money is no object. Come on," she said, quickly heading over to the cantina. "If Vigo Andar is in this city, we'll find him."

As they entered the ancient dive, Leia stopped a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the low light. She tried to use the Force to sense possible danger, but the place was so full of ill intent that there was no way she could sort through it all and determine if any was directed their way. The Headquarters was filled with dozens of shifty, guilty-looking creatures. She actually recognized the bounty hunter Dengar seated across the room. He was sipping at something toxic yellow and bubbly. Across the table from him sat a figure in very ragged dirty robes. She caught a glimpse of a heavily scarred hand reaching for its own drink.

The two women stepped up to the bar. "Wha'dya wan'?" barked the barkeep, a very surly looking Human. He glared at them with one eye. The other was covered with a worn leather patch, the edges of a nasty looking scar peeking out from underneath.

"Klatooinean fire ale," said Mara. "She'll have the same." She jerked her thumb at Leia.

He eyed Leia, as if doubtful fire ale would be her drink of choice. Leia just gave him a hard stare back from beneath her hood and accepted the light brown beverage. She followed Mara to a secluded booth crusted with a century's worth of grime. As they sat, Leia risked a question.

"So what now?"

"Now, we wait. I've already got something going," she said as she adjusted her hood. She gave her drink a swirl before taking a sip. Leia sniffed at her own drink cautiously.

"What do you mean you've already got something going? We just got here. I didn't see you talk to anyone." Mara ignored the question. She was staring over Leia's shoulder. Before Leia could turn to see what it was Mara was looking at, the robed figure she'd seen accompanying the bounty hunter sat himself down at their table.

He placed both scarred hands palms-down on the table to show that he was unarmed.

"I understand my services could be of use," he said with an exotic accent Leia couldn't quite place but which sounded familiar nonetheless.

"Who are you?" asked Leia. Mara shot her a look of pure poison across the table.

"Excuse my partner," said Mara to the robed man. "She's new. _To life_."

"Right," he said somewhat unconvinced. "I normally don't act as a broker. I was a bounty hunter up until very recently." He rubbed subconsciously at the scars covering his hands. In the dim light, Leia couldn't see his face under his hood. "But when I was assured of the importance, I accepted." He then added, "Anything for the Empire," with more than a touch of sarcasm and a mock nod of respect.

"I'm glad you feel that way," Mara said. "You'll be well-paid for your services."

"I expect nothing less than fifty thousand," he said bluntly.

"Thirty-five," said Leia immediately. The man's head snapped in her direction.

"Have we met?" he asked her.

"Doubtful," said Leia.

"Fifty thousand will be fine," said Mara, positively glowing with anger.

"Excellent. Come with me back to my table and we'll get set up the arrangements." He led them back to where the bounty hunter still sat and spoke quietly in his ear. The women sat and politely nodded towards Dengar. He nodded back and sipped at his drink before speaking.

"My partner here tells me you could use our help," he said in a gruff voice. "What can we do for you?" His face was heavily scarred. Unlike his partner's, which looked like acid burns, Dengar's appeared to be the result of hundreds of criss-crossing cuts and gashes. He must've caught her staring because he said, "Do you like them? A little present from a no-good pirate by the name of Solo." At the mention of Han's name, Leia gave a startled gasp.

"I, too, owe my current appearance to Captain Solo, _Princess_." If the mention of Han's name had startled her, the mention of her own nearly floored her. She choked on her ale and spilled the rest all over the table.

She looked over to Mara, who seemed unaffected. "How long have you known?" she asked.

"I recognized you the moment you stepped in here. I suspected your friend here was the princess, but wasn't sure until she reacted to Solo's name." The robed man flicked a wrist toward Dengar. "Besides, his ship picked up the _Jade Sabre_ the moment it came into orbit." He turned to look at Leia. "And we _have_ met, Your Highness. Though last time I saw you, I was looking at you down a gun barrel and you were holding a certain Hutt captive with a thermal detonator."

"Who are you?" asked Leia.

"A ghost," he said mysteriously. "Courtesy of your Captain Solo."

Less than pleased with the answer, Leia regardless decided to let it go. "Shall we get back to business?" she asked.

"Yes, let's," said the robed man.

"We need to know the location of a Black Sun vigo here on Nar Shaddaa. A Human by the name of Ric Andar." Mara stared hard at the duo, no doubt wondering if they could help. Leia was surprised they weren't interested in turning her over to the Hutts.

"A Black Sun vigo, huh?" said Dengar. "I think that'll raise the price to a hundred thousand."

"What?" exclaimed Leia, outraged. Mara kicked her beneath the table.

"A hundred will be fine," Mara said impatiently. "The thing is, we're on kind of a time limit. We've got exactly thirty-six hours to find Mr. Andar and—conduct our business with him."

"I think thirty-six hours will be plenty of time. I can have him for you in three," said the robed man.

"Who _are_ you?" Leia asked again.

"Like I said, Princess, I'm a ghost."

* * *

><p>The demonstration of the HyperGate had been a complete success. They had already received word from the Maw-based Gate that the planet had completely reintegrated with all life signs intact. On the bridge of the <em>Manticore<em>, Arisin, Palpatine, and Grand Admiral Piett had just moments before witnessed the HyperGate activate and swallow Naboo whole.

As the gate connected with its counterpart in the Maw, Arisin had felt a certain amount of trepidation. His heart skipped a beat when the wormhole was established. The wormhole itself appeared like a whirlpool of reddish phosphorescent mist, swirling around the confines of the ring like smoke.

It had positioned itself next to the planet and slowly advanced. It was truly a sight to behold, an entire planet entering a ring and not coming out the other side. Once the planet had been consumed entirely by the swirling vortex, the gate disengaged and left nothing but empty space. All that remained of Naboo were its three moons, whose trajectories were now permanently changed due to the loss of Naboo's gravity.

"It is done then," his master had said gravely.

"Are you sad to see your homeworld gone?" Arisin asked.

"Naboo ceased to be my home long ago, Lord Arisin," the Emperor had responded. "This planet was the heart of the Alliance Remnant. I do not regret my decision to make an example of it. Let us hope no more planets earn themselves a similar fate."

Though he had said he didn't regret his decision, Palpatine still stood staring out at the newly empty space.

"I have sent your sister on her first mission," Palpatine said absently, still looking out into space.

"Really?" said Arisin, who had been standing with him silently since the event. "She's ready?"

"I believe so. She is with Mara Jade, my finest Hand." He turned now to look at his apprentice. "I am hoping the princess will learn much from her. She is still very stubborn. She will have a difficult time allowing herself to take orders from Jade."

Arisin shook his head. "She won't willingly cooperate. She always needs to be in control."

Palpatine nodded. "Yes, I had noticed. The quality is not wholly unwelcome, however. She has a wonderful natural ability to lead. Nevertheless, she needs to learn when to take orders and when to give them. I have seen her at her best on the Senate floor. Her charisma and passion were unrivaled by any of the other senators. I have considered giving her military leadership once she has completed her training."

"I think that would be an excellent idea, Master," Arisin said. "She was brilliant during the Rebellion. With her drive to bring justice to all parts of the galaxy, military backing would allow her to get a lot accomplished."

"Absolutely," said the Emperor. He tapped his cane firmly on the deck. "Come, walk me to my ship."

"You're leaving so soon, Master?" Arisin couldn't mask his disappointment.

"Yes. There is still much to be done back at the Capital, I'm afraid. Until the last traces of the Rebellion are washed completely away, I can't afford to be away from Coruscant for long periods." They had exited the bridge.

"I understand," said Arisin. "Is there a time frame yet as to when all the Rebels will be accounted for?"

"I'm afraid not," Palpatine admitted. "Though they are few, they are still embedded deep in the woodwork of the Empire. It is only a matter of time before they are dug out. I will not make the same mistake I made when I allowed the remaining Jedi to go free. These Rebels will be hunted relentlessly down to the last man." As they reached the lift that would take the Emperor down to the hangar level, Arisin prepared to bid his master farewell. When the door opened, the Emperor beckoned for Arisin to follow. "Come, you're to return with me to Coruscant. From there, you will depart on your next mission."

Arisin nodded obediently and stepped into the lift beside the Emperor. It rapidly descended the three hundred stories to the hangar level. The door slid open to reveal two Red Guards standing at attention, ready to escort their Emperor to his waiting ship. Seeing Lord Arisin, they automatically hung back behind the pair. The two Sith made their way to the shuttle in silence. As they approached, the aging pilot stepped part way down the boarding ramp.

"Ah, Your Majesty. The shuttle is prepared to leave whenever you wish." Arisin had seen this man before. The old man, easily in his sixties, was the Emperor's favorite shuttle pilot and had worked for him for many years.

"Thank you, Captain Kagi. We shall be leaving immediately for Coruscant."

"Yes, Milord." He retreated up into the cockpit and prepared to take off.

Arisin and the Emperor found their seats and the ramp sealed shut as the last two Red Guards filed into the passenger area and took their positions. Even in flight, they stood at silent attention.

As the shuttle lifted off the gleaming hangar floor and rocketed out into open space, the Emperor turned to Arisin. "I would like to tell you a story, Lord Arisin." He smiled, recalling his first telling of this story. "I call it 'The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise'."

"Who was he, Master?"

"He was a very powerful Sith Lord. Very powerful indeed. He held such a mastery of the Dark Side. But, as powerful as he was, his apprentice showed even _more_ promise…"

* * *

><p>It had been fourteen years now. Fourteen years since the night that changed young Palpatine's life forever.<p>

Under the tutelage of Darth Plagueis, he had learned much about the Dark Side. He had acquired the knowledge of a hundred generations of Sith before him and craved even more. He proudly wore the mantle "Darth Sidious, Dark Lord of the Sith."

It frustrated him that, as powerful as he and his master were, they were nevertheless forced to hide like vermin in the shadows. However, he understood that the ingenious plan put into motion by a very wise Sith over three centuries before required patience. The Sith were nothing if not patient. And it seemed that their limitless patience was going to pay off.

Over the years, Palpatine had discovered an innate talent for reading the future. He hadn't shared with his master the prophetic visions of himself, sitting high on a throne, the galaxy in the palm of his hand. He saw vague images of himself ridding the galaxy of the Jedi along side a dark figure. He wasn't sure why he'd kept his ability a secret from Lord Plagueis. The Force had urged him to keep it to himself and so he did. He knew that the grand scheme of the Sith, hundreds of years in the making, would finally come to fruition with him and him alone.

He sat in his chambers, alone and in deep meditation. _The Father will kill the Son…the Son of Suns._ He had no coherent understanding of the words, but they kept repeating in his head. He meditated for hours on those words. The sense he got was that their meaning wasn't literal but metaphorical. _The Father will kill the son._ What could it mean? And who was this Son of Suns? Perhaps this father, whoever he was, would trigger some sort of _change_ in the son. Would he turn him into something other than what he was? _To the Dark Side?_ Yes, that was it! He was sure of it! Sidious was uncertain of its overall meaning, but he was certain that, someday, the Son of Suns would be turned to the Dark Side by his father. Could this be the dark figure he had seen in so many visions?

Perhaps it meant nothing. Not all of his trips into the future ended with viable prophesy. Untangling the complex threads of time was never easy and hardly reliable. He was still too novice to see anything with complete clarity.

His eyes slowly opened. Even as the doorbell was chiming, he was calling out, "Come in, Master."

The door slid open with a quiet hiss and his master, Darth Plagueis, strode in. A tall, lany Muun, he carried an air of extreme power and wisdom, even at his advancing age. He was still dressed in his lavish Senatorial garb, which added comical girth to his skeletal frame. He'd just come from a special session of Congress.

"I come with disturbing news, Apprentice," he said somberly. "The Senate has just voted on a new bill that, if it should be passed into law as it looks as though it will, will give the Jedi unrestricted police authority. They will be allowed to act without first consulting the Senate or the Supreme Chancellor."

"The Jedi will have free-reign?" Palpatine asked, now growing concerned. "That _is_ disturbing, Master. You're certain it will pass?"

"It definitely stands a better than average chance," the Muun Sith Master confirmed bitterly. "Especially after the Jedi managed to stop the Mandalorian invasion of Concord Dawn. Everyone loves them. This could severely complicate things. Should it pass into law, we would have to be even more cautious, hide even deeper in the shadows."

"The Jedi will pay, Master," Sidious swore. "They are planning to take over, I can feel it. But it will be the Sith who bring their treachery to light. The Sith shall inherit the power."

Plagueis pulled his thin lips back in a smirk. "This is true. But until that time comes, we must be cautious. Now, come with me. I have a new lesson for you."

"Yes, Master," said Palpatine. He stood and obediently followed Plagueis out into the hall. "What is this new less—"

In a flash of crimson, Plagueis lit his saber and plunged it through Palpatine's heart. He crumpled to the floor, dead, a look of utter shock on his face.

The next thing he remembered was looking up at his master's long boxy face as he lay in the same spot on the floor where he'd fallen.

"What happened, Master?" he asked groggily.

"I killed you," said Plagueis simply. He pointed to the still smoking hole in Sidious' robes, pale skin now exposed. "I impaled you on my lightsaber and vaporized your heart, flash boiling your blood. You died instantly."

Sidious put a hand to his chest, checking for the cauterized hole that would substantiate his master's claims. He found solid flesh. No sign of a wound anywhere.

"But—," he started, confused.

"I killed you," said Plagueis, "and I brought you back to life." The old Muun grinned wickedly, apparently very pleased with himself. "I wasn't certain it would work, but it did and I can now confidently claim that I now have control over life and death; of the midichlorians themselves! After killing you, I instructed the midichlorians to reconstruct the damaged tissue and to breathe new life into your body. You now have the honor of being the first being in history to definitively cheat death."

Still stunned, Sidious didn't know what to say. He wasn't sure if he was grateful that his master had restored his life or furious that he had taken it without warning.

"Come," said Plagueis. "I shall teach you this skill, but it will not be easy. It has taken me many years to develop and I still have yet to control it fully. We can learn to perfect it together." He offered his hand, which Sidious took and got to his feet.

"What else can you do?" young Sidious inquired, his interest piqued.

"When you have a direct influence on midichlorians," Plagueis told his Apprentice, "you command not just the ability to stop death, but to create _life_."

"Life," Sidious repeated, awed. "You said you could actually _stop_ death?"

"I did," Plagueis said. "I _have_," he reminded his apprentice.

"Immortality," Sidious said in a hushed voice, more to himself than Plagueis. "Teach me," he said.

Something about his apprentice's reaction that day disturbed and frightened Plagueis. The Force warned that it had been a mistake to reveal this power to the boy. But it was too late to back out now. Mistake or not, the nexu was out of the bag. Plagueis had to do _something_.

After three weeks and almost no progress, Sidious was getting frustrated.

"I've advanced quickly at everything else!" he raged. "Why isn't it working?"

"It took me a great many years to find the secret, boy," Plagueis scolded. "You cannot expect to learn the skill this quickly!" Plagueis had in fact been withholding certain important mental exercises. The technique required such an extreme degree if internal focus that without them, it would be impossible to unlock the secret. He'd thought a long time about teaching Sidious the key to immortality, but after what he sensed upon revealing it to the young Dark Lord, Plagueis feared that teaching his apprentice would be very dangerous.

Sidious had known of his master's deceit all along. It was painfully obvious why he wasn't progressing. What Lord Plagueis had been teaching him these past few weeks had been nothing but bantha dung. He was no closer now to immortality than Humans were to evolving wings. He knew now that his master would never teach him the power to halt death. Plagueis feared his power and ambition. Sidious could feel it. He feared his apprentice's power so much that he would selfishly withhold knowledge that could gain them the advantage over the Jedi. He suspected that Plagueis might even attempt to utilize this new power to create a _new_ apprentice for himself, one whom he can mold from birth in some twisted mockery of the Jedi way.

But Sidious _was _powerful. More powerful than Plagueis had ever dreamed. He knew now all he needed. His master was merely holding him back from this point. Sidious would learn the secret of eternal life himself, free of Plagueis' restraints. But for that to happen, Plagueis must be out of the way. And so Sidious began to conspire.

For a further two weeks, Sidious allowed his master to teach him drivel until the time for action had come. Plagueis would die that night.

"You are making wonderful progress," Plagueis lied after that day's lesson.

"Why doesn't it _feel_ like progress?" asked Sidious, humoring the old man.

"Do not be insolent with me, boy," the Muun warned sharply. "You must first condition your mind. Only once you truly _understand_ life can you begin to create and prolong it. You must develop a mastery of the Force greater than any have dreamed possible."

Sidious smirked despite himself. "Oh, I know I'll do that, Master. I shall be the most powerful Sith that ever lived. I will eclipse the Jedi and bring their order to its knees."

Though the words sent an icy stab of fear into his gut, Plagueis managed a weak smile. "Yes, I believe you will," he said quietly. The Sith Master knew his apprentice had already surpassed his own power. The secret of life was all he had left to hold over ambitious young Sith Lord's head. He was confident that it was enough. _He won't dare kill me until he's learned this power_, he thought. _Even _he_ can't learn the intricacies alone_._ His never-ending quest for knowledge will buy me the time I require to prepare._

He watched Sidious settle back down into a sitting position and begin meditating anew and he saw not the face of victory for the Sith but the monster who would kill him before his time. Plagueis looked at his apprentice and he knew fear.

* * *

><p>His master was a confident man. He was so confident in his vast powers that he felt no need to install any security systems in his apartment. He felt himself so attuned to the Force that he could sense any oncoming danger. Masking himself in the Dark Side, it was only too easy for Sidious to break into the lavish penthouse apartment at Five Hundred Republica.<p>

He became but a shadow. He wore soft-soled slippers and crept noiselessly down the long art-lined hallway to the Sith Master's bedroom. He allowed himself a smile. _After tonight_, he thought, I _will be the greatest Sith that ever lived. No one will keep me from my destiny._

Long shadows were cast down the hall as a speeder passed by a sitting room window. No one stirred in the bedroom ahead. Four meters; three meters. Slowly, ever so slowly, he approached the room. He peered inside. Using the Force to enhance his night vision, he could see Plagueis, sleeping soundly, no idea that death was but meters away. _The old fool,_ Sidious though. The young Sith viewed the physical need for sleep as a weakness to be shed as quickly as possible. His master was careless. Weakness is death.

Still cloaked in the Force, he stepped up to the foot of the huge bed. In its center lay his soon-to-be late master. Sidious' face, already beginning to show the subtle ravages of the vast Dark powers housed in his flesh, sneered at the slumbering Sith Lord. It was then that he dropped his veil.

Immediately, Plagueis sprang straight up, twisting his elongated head this way and that, trying to see through the darkness for the presence he sensed. "What?" he cried out, confused. "_Sidious_! How did you get in here? How _dare_ you!" He reached out a hand and called for his lightsaber.

"Be quiet, old man," Sidious spat with disgust. With a gesture, the lightsaber was redirected into a far unseen corner of the room. "Did you really think you could fool me with your idiotic lessons? I am more powerful than you can imagine. I no longer have any use for you. You are holding me back from my _destiny_." With the last word, arcs of white-hot energy leapt from Sidious' fingertips into Plagueis' body. The old Muun howled in pain.

"Treachery!" Plagueis cried as the dark lightning speared his chest. He managed a powerful Force shove. "You will pay dearly for this, boy!"

Slammed backwards into the wall, Sidious' attack was interrupted. "I would greatly like to see you stop me!" he snarled as he recovered. He wiped a small trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

When Plagueis made a move to get out of bed, Sidious raised a hand and the old man was forced back down. "There's no need to get up. This won't take long." Theatrically, Sidious curled his fingers into a tight fist. Plagueis grabbed at his chest, his narrow face contorted with pain.

"What—what are you doing?" he wheezed. He looked at Sidious with terror in his eyes. Even with all of his power, he was helpless against the assault of his apprentice.

"I am stopping a heart which has beaten for too long. Good-bye, Master," Sidious said, an evil gleam in his eye. With a violent twist of his wrist, Sidious sneered and Plagueis let forth an agonized scream, thrashing about on his bed like a wounded kath hound. He grabbed his chest with one hand and his bed sheets with the other. Then, after a moment, he went limp and lay still. Sidious saw the Muun's long fingers loosen and his chest lower as he exhaled his last breath. He had done it. Plagueis was dead.

* * *

><p>Arisin sat engrossed in the tale. "What ever became of the apprentice, Master? Who was he?"<p>

The edge's of Palpatine's mouth flickered ever so slightly in a grin. "He slashed the body with his lightsaber, making it appear as though a Jedi were responsible. While not enough to bring down the entire Order, it was enough to keep that bill from passing into law. He then went on to become the greatest Sith Lord in history. He ended the reign of the Jedi Order and, with the galaxy's support, he founded a new government to replace the crumbling Republic. He founded an Empire."

"You?" said Arisin, stunned.

The Emperor nodded. "Plagueis was the Master, Sidious—_I—_was the Apprentice."

"Did you ever learn his secret, Master?" Arisin asked.

The Emperor sighed. "I never have," he admitted. "I have learned a few…tricks. But I have yet to discover the secret that my master had uncovered. I have told you this story in the hopes that you will help me to find the key to immortality. I'll not make the same mistakes my master made. We shall _truly_ learn together."

"But Master, aren't you afraid I'll do as you once did and destroy you once I've become more powerful?"

"You are far too intelligent to destroy me," the Emperor told him. "You have dreams of great power, power that I will freely help you to achieve. But you've nothing to gain by killing me. You have no to rule the galaxy. Killing me would only burden you with responsibility you have no desire to possess. I believe the days of the old Sith are over, Lord Arisin. Master and apprentice need no longer vie for power. Power will be allowed to grow without obstruction. Some competition is healthy. It weeds out the weak and allows the strong to survive. But the competition of Sith past has been disastrous. You see the galaxy as I do. We share the same views, the same _logic_. _That_ is how I know you will not betray me as I betrayed my master and as thousands of masters have been betrayed before him. You are the first of the New Sith Order, which you will help me shape into something that will shed itself of its destructive roots and focus on _power_. Without the Jedi to hide from, we needn't limit ourselves any longer."

Arisin stared into his master's wise yellow eyes. "There's wisdom in your words, Master. You're right, of course. The power I seek I can't find as the head of any government. All that betraying you would accomplish is chaos in the Empire and responsibilities I don't want."

"You strive to be as powerful as your potential will allow," said the Emperor.

"I'll not be known throughout history as a farm boy from Tatooine," Arisin vowed. "I'll be marked down as one of the greatest Sith our order has ever seen. One who made a positive difference in the galaxy."

"I am pleased to hear that, Lord Arisin. You will appreciate your next mission all the more, then."

"Oh?" Arisin was now very curious.

"Yes. With the galaxy essentially at peace, there is currently very little for you to do for me at the moment. That is why I am sending you back to Korriban," Sidious told his apprentice. "There you will stay, discovering its secrets, learning a greater understanding of the Dark Side and what it is to be a Sith Lord. There is a great deal of knowledge in those dark places for those strong enough to seek it."

"I look forward to it, Master." Arisin still knew so little about the Dark Side and his own potential abilities. He looked forward to learning what the Sith of eons past had to teach him.

"Korriban is a treasure trove of Dark Side knowledge," the Emperor said. "The secrets of millennia reside within the Valley of the Sith. After the—_demise_—of my master, I journeyed to the planet to further my own training. Even I still have yet to discover all that it has to offer."

"Will you be joining me at any point, Master?" asked Arisin.

"No." The Emperor shook his head. "I don't believe so. While the war is over, much still needs to be done. This is a time of reconstruction. More than ever, I am needed on Coruscant."

"I understand, Master."

"I know you do, Lord Arisin. I feel that you have an understanding much deeper than any of my previous apprentices."

Arisin wasn't sure what to say. "Thank you, Master." As he said the words, they didn't seem enough. How could he ever repay this man for all he'd been given?

"There will be a time, Apprentice, when you shall understand all. I have foreseen immense power in your future. How you choose to use that power is up to you."

The rest of the journey was in silence. Both Sith lords immersed themselves deep in meditation. When the shuttle exited hyperspace, the two Dark figures were simultaneously ripped out of their trance by a great disturbance in the Force.


	2. Dark Side Rising

**Chapter 2: Dark Side Rising**

Mara Jade and the newest of the Emperor's Hands, Princess Leia Organa, were crouched in a dank alley ankle deep in something foul waiting for the vigo to make his appearance. According to their contacts, the vigo would be walking this way any time now.

Nar Shaddaa reminded Leia of the very worst parts of the Coruscanti lower levels. The buildings were in varying states of decomposition. Ancient duracrete had rotted away, exposing power cables and decaying pipe work. A sick yellow fungus coated almost every surface, no doubt slowly eating away at the mineral content of everything it could find. It was only a matter of time before the buildings, severely weakened over the centuries, began to collapse. She absently wondered if anyone would even care.

Footsteps in the darkness nearby caught the attention of the two women. A man dressed in plain spacer garb—hardly fitting of a Black Sun Vigo—swung around the far east corner of the building and was moving toward them. As he walked, he went through small islands of light cast by the widely spaced glow lamps. Following closely behind him on either side were two menacing gray creatures. Roughly a meter and a half in height, their ferocious appearance more than made up for their diminutive stature. Not many pilots walked around with their own bodyguards.

"Noghri," Leia heard Mara whisper. "We just got lucky."

"What? What are Noghri?" Leia breathed, not taking her eyes off the aggressive looking aliens.

"Just trust me." Before Leia could stop her, Mara stood, pulling Leia up with her by the arm.

"What are you—?" Leia fought against her.

"Just trust me!" Mara repeated through gritted teeth. The sound of their scuffle alerted the Noghri bodyguards of their presence.

"Who isss there?" asked one in a smooth purr. The other seemed to have disappeared. The vigo stood with his back pressed to the wall, placing his remaining bodyguard between him and the women.

Mara dragged Leia into the light. "I am called Jade," she called out, holding Leia by the wrist.

"And who isss thisss?" hissed a voice at Leia's right elbow, startling her. She felt the cold edge of a blade at her throat.

"This is Leia Organa," answered Mara. "Daughter of Darth Vader."

"What?" said the first Noghri in surprise. "Kilneytuk of clan Mal'shay, verify."

The Noghri's powerful hands pulled Leia down to his level and he pressed his nose to the skin of her exposed neck. She felt its hot breath as it sniffed her. Instantly, the blade was gone from her throat.

"It is true!" he yelled.

"What are you doing?" cried the vigo, suddenly finding his voice. "Kill them!" Neither Noghri made a move.

Mara leaned over to Leia. "Order them to do something," she said out of the corner of her mouth.

"What?" asked Leia. "Why would they do what I tell them?"

"Just—"

"Trust you, right," said Leia, frustrated. "Uh, ok. Noghri," she called out. "Apprehend the vigo."

In unison, the Noghri cried, "At once, Lady Vader!" The first Noghri grabbed one of the vigo's arms as he tried to run away. The other rushed out from behind Leia at an unbelievable speed and clutched at the other arm. The vigo struggled against them until one, the Noghri who had snuck up on Leia, brought his curved blade against the vigo's throat faster than Leia could track.

"Okay," said Leia slowly to Mara. "Explain."

Mara smiled. "Back during the Clone Wars, the Noghri homeworld was devastated by a Separatist ship. It crashed into the planet and contaminated the surroundings with the toxins it carried in its cargo hold. Most of the planet was eventually rendered barren. After the war, Lord Vader supervised the rejuvenation process. The Noghri pledged allegiance to him and his clan. That would be _you_." She laughed. "And here I thought you wouldn't be useful on this trip."

"Thanks," she said, giving Mara a sarcastic smile. "Now what do we do?"

"Now we have two Noghri to help us on the mission," Mara told her. "They're a lot like Wookiees with their life debts. Want them or not, they're yours till death do you part."

"Terrific," said Leia cynically. "Just what I needed." What was she going to do with two Noghri? "So what am I supposed to do now?"

"They're _your_ Noghri. You decide. But hurry up; we've got three more vigos after this."

"Right." She stepped toward the very frightened vigo. "My, my, vigo," she said admonishingly, stepping into the character of Emperor's Hand. "We have caused a lot of trouble, haven't we?"

The vigo just stared at her through terrified eyes. Undoubtedly, was all too aware of the Noghri's lethal capabilities.

"Black Sun has worn out its welcome in the Empire," she told him.

Finding his voice, the vigo cried, "But you want Breyac, not me!" His hair was mussed and his breath came out in ragged, frightened gasps. "I'm just a vigo; he's the head!"

Leia gave her most condescending laugh. "Ric, Ric, Ric. Have you ever heard of the hydra?" she asked. He shook his head. "It's a great sea serpent on the world of Mon Calamari. The hydra has a number of individual heads, not unlike Black Sun. But do you know what is so special about that fact?"

Nervously, the vigo shook his head again.

"Removing one of the heads simply will not kill it. Do you know how many heads you have to remove before the creature finally dies?"

Again, the vigo shook his head, careful not to brush against the Noghri blade held unmoving just millimeters from his skin.

Leia smiled. "I bet you could guess. I bet you're a smart man, Vigo Ric Andar of Black Sun. Tell me, of the multiple heads of the hydra, how many would you have to sever before it died?"

The vigo gulped loudly. "A-all of them?" he said quietly.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. How about you, Mara?"

Mara shrugged. "Nope. Didn't hear a thing." She found herself impressed with Leia's handling of the situation, much as she'd prefer not to be.

"A little louder this time, Ric. How many of the heads?"

"All of them!" he cried. His face was a mixture of fear and anger at this prolonged humiliation.

"Exactly right, vigo! Very good. So you see, even _you_ are important." Without warning, she violently flicked her wrist and the alley was filled with the sick wet snap of the vigo's neck as it echoed off the surrounding buildings. He went limp in the arms of the Noghri, who dropped the corpse to the trash strewn ground. "Well, you _were_, anyway," she added.

Mara Jade stood frozen, mouth agape. She tried to process what she'd just witnessed but was coming up blank. "Wow," was all she could get out.

Leia turned to look at her, a solemn expression on her face. "Not such a princess now, am I?" she asked the dumbstruck woman. "When a job needs to be done, at the end of the day, the Emperor can count on _both_ of us." She told Mara, who offered no argument. "Now," she said, turning to the two Noghri she seemed to have inherited. "What are your names?"

"I," said the first Noghri, "am Dreyauk of clan Chu'lak. This," he gestured to the other, "is Kilneytuk of clan Mal'shay."

"Dreyauk and Kilneytuk, hmm? You," she pointed at Dreyauk, "I'll call you Drey. And you," pointing to the other, "How do you feel about Kay?"

"Lady Vader," said Dreyauk. "We will respond to whatever names you wish to bestow upon us. We are now your most loyal protectors."

"Alright, Drey and Kay it is." She had a feeling these two may actually come in handy.

The long walk back to their ship was wholly uneventful and entirely silent. As they neared the landing pad, however, Leia leaned close to Mara and asked, "Hey, how did you know they wouldn't kill us despite my…parentage?"

"That's easy," said Mara, not looking the other woman in the face. "I didn't."

"Oh," said Leia. "I see."

"Listen, Princess, if it hadn't worked, we would've found another way to deal with the situation, that's all. We're not exactly helpless, you know." She gave Leia a sigh. "If it makes you feel better, this was probably as easy as it's gonna get."

"And how exactly is it supposed to make me feel better?"

Mara shrugged. "It'll keep you on your toes. Can't have you letting your guard down."

"You don't need to worry about me," Leia said, doubtful that it was her well-being that Mara was actually concerned for.

"I see that," Mara said. "You tapped into something back there. You taunted him, toyed with him. Then you executed him. When you killed him, you felt excited. I could sense it. Admit it, Princess, you had fun."

"What?" Leia shook her head at the accusation. "No, of course not. I was acting," she argued. But she added rather sheepishly, "Besides, so what if I enjoyed killing him? He was a very bad person. I was bringing some justice to the galaxy. What's wrong with that? That's all I've ever wanted to do. It's why I became a senator and it's why I joined the Rebellion."

Mara scoffed. "Whatever helps you sleep. You really don't need to justify yourself. The Emperor ordered you to kill him. But instead, you have to complicate things with justifications, make it all personal. Lemme give you a word of advice; if you want to make it as an Emperor's Hand, you need to look at a job as just that. Allow yourself to have fun doing it if it help. Don't think about what kind of person the job is. Just remember that there's a reason the Emperor wants them gone and let that be the end of it." She added, "You start trying to _justify_ what we do and you'll go crazy."

Leia nodded. "I admit, that feeling of power was…"

"Intoxicating?"

"Yeah," Leia admitted. "But I want to control it. I don't want it to control _me_. That's what I feel I need to focus on."

"Fair enough."

Neither of them spoke again until reached the _Jade Sabre_. Leia was amazed at how silent the two Noghri were. They deftly scurried ahead of the two women, checking every shadow for any threat.

"You know, Princess," said Mara as they approached the ship. "These two could really take the fun out of our job." She scoffed. "I mean, half the perks involve kicking the jawa juice out of guys who sneak up on you. If these two take them out before we even see them, what's there left for us to do?"

Leia only rolled her eyes and smirked. Drey and Kay stood watch behind them as Mara input the unlock codes and the ramp lowered. As they were filing aboard, Leia thought of something.

"I'm sorry, guys. Did you have anything you wanted to take with you?"

"A Noghri doesn't need possessions," said Drey.

"All that we need, we carry on our person," added Kay.

"Great," said Mara. "Then we can hurry up. This place may be lawless, but murder is _eventually_ discovered and sometimes even frowned upon. Let's not be here when that happens." She ran up to the pilot station and sealed the ship. Leia took the Noghri to the passenger area. She couldn't help but laugh when they sat on the flight couch and their feet didn't touch the deck.

"Sorry," she chortled. "I didn't mean anything by that."

"Our size and the irony that comes with it are not lost on us," said Kay with a toothy smile. "It is, in fact, more advantageous that our adversaries underestimate us."

"I guess I should count myself lucky that we're on the same side, then," said Leia earnestly.

"Lady Vader, though the Noghri cannot touch the Force, as the daughter of Lord Vader, you must be very powerful. No Noghri warrior can compete with your power."

"Oh, I don't know about that," she said modestly.

The two Noghri glanced at each other, and then leapt at Leia in a gray flash. Without thinking, Leia held up her hands and the Noghri were tossed against the bulkhead.

"Hey! What was that about?" she cried out as the Noghri picked themselves up from the deck.

"Showing you," said Kay, wiping dark blood from the corner of his mouth, "that you are more powerful than you believe."

"We can smell the power on you," said Drey. "It is even stronger than Lord Vader's."

"_What in Stars' End are you doing to my ship back there?"_ Mara yelled over the intercom. _"We're about to take off and you're throwing stuff around?"_

Leia stepped up to the comm. panel. "Don't worry; your precious ship isn't hurt," she told Mara. "We may have some concussed Noghri back here, though. Where's your med kit?"

"_Under the flight couch. You can tell me what happened on the way."_

"Where are we going?" asked Leia.

"_Just be sure you dress warm."_ The comm clicked off.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She didn't get an answer. "Jade?" More silence. "Jade!" Nothing. "Blast you, Jade!"

* * *

><p>The Emperor's shuttle circled the enormous Imperial Palace twice before landing in the Emperor's private bay. Its wings folded and the ship set down without the slightest jostle.<p>

The moment the ramp touched the floor, both Sith Lords rushed out of the ship at top speed. As they had approached the planet, both had felt a considerable disturbance in the Force. They knew the only likely source of the disturbance was the Rebel prisoner, Katarn, who was strong in the Force himself, though untrained so far as they were aware. They needed to get to him immediately. He was being held in the bowels of the palace. They took a private turbolift down nearly four hundred stories into the sub-basement.

"Come," said the Emperor, moving remarkably fast for a man of his age. "We must move swiftly."

"There's something very familiar about this presence, Master," Arisin commented as they sprinted. "Something isn't right here." Arisin had a bad feeling about all of this.

They rushed past two very startled guards and into the cellblock. Katarn's cell was at the end of a long hallway. When they reached the cell, Arisin felt something within that he hadn't in many months. He opened the door and entered the room, followed quickly by his master.

"Hello, Obi-Wan," Arisin addressed the glowing, translucent figure at the center of the cell. They'd caught him talking to Katarn.

"Luke," the deceased Jedi Master said in a spectral voice, his tone hardened some from its former warmth.

"Master Kenobi, how wonderful to see you. You're much older than when I last saw you." The Emperor's words were polite to the point of mocking. "You haven't been counseling our young prisoner here, have you?"

"You!" Obi-Wan glared menacingly at the Emperor. "You are an abomination to the Force! Your tyranny has led to the deaths of billions!"

"My 'tyranny' has led this galaxy through two wars and saved far more lives than it has taken," the Emperor countered.

"You destroyed the Jedi, guard—"

"Oh, don't give me that 'guardians of peace and justice' swill," Palpatine croaked. "The Jedi were as corrupt as any political body. You may have been a separate entity in the beginning, free of any political affiliation, but you and your order became tangled in the bureaucracy the same as everyone else. You didn't guard peace and justice. You cared only for yourselves. Commendable, certainly, but hypocritical nonetheless." The Emperor relished the opportunity to say these things to a Jedi's face. "How many deaths could you have prevented had you not been so focused on yourselves? How many times did you refuse to squash an uprising? Hmm? In the Huk Wars, you sided with the _invaders_."

"We had no right to meddle in the affairs of other planets," said Obi-Wan. "We offered _guidance_."

"You had the power to stop such things and you chose not to," Palpatine growled.

"Having the power to do something does not give you the right," Obi-Wan argued.

"Oh, but it does. Whether you admit it or not, the Sith and the Jedi are inherently above ordinary citizenry," Palpatine said. "The Force has granted us power over them. We are _meant_ to use it."

"The Jedi didn't look at the Force as a power to wield; we saw it as a gift to be used sparingly and in service to others."

The Emperor scoffed. "You felt that your 'gift' placed you above everyone else, only you never had the courage to admit it to yourselves. The Jedi were narrow-minded and dogmatic in their views of the galaxy, unable to fathom that their way of life was not the best way."

"We used the Force for knowledge and defense," Kenobi pressed stubbornly. "We used it to serve others. You, along with every other Sith, only wish to gain power for _yourself_. To cause pain and suffering. To oppress."

At this the Emperor actually laughed. "My good Jedi, if the Sith were as terrible as you would have people think, we wouldn't have much to have power over, now would we? You Jedi are always talking of peace and understanding, yet anything you do not understand or agree with, you fear. And when the Jedi fear, they destroy. You dare complain that I wiped out the great and peaceful Jedi Order, yet you and your kind have hunted the Sith to the point of extinction for _millennia_ because you feared our ways. The Dark Side has always frightened lesser being, those too afraid to hold any _real_ power. You lashed out in your fear and you destroyed us. Your fate was _well_ deserved."

Arisin and Katarn had remained silent during the exchange, wrapped up in what was unfolding before them.

"The Dark Side will only destroy you in the end," Obi-Wan told the Emperor. "That is all it's good for. Destruction."

"With it," said the Emperor, "I have built an empire. An empire that will stand for a thousand generations."

"Overconfidence is your weakness," the Jedi said sharply.

Palpatine laughed, remembering that Arisin had once said those very words. "And if we are to play that game, incorporeality is yours, Master Kenobi. I tire of this. Tell me what you were doing in young Katarn's cell."

Obi-Wan shook his head and began to fade away without a word.

Palpatine made a subtle hand gesture. "Oh, you're not going anywhere," he said. There was a subtle note of strain in his voice, though that was all that betrayed the tremendous effort he was exerting to keep Kenobi rooted in place.

Obi-Wan looked puzzled. "But, you can't have power over this plane!"

"Tell that to your little green friend." Palpatine said with a toothy grin.

Obi-Wan's eyes widened in shock then immediately narrowed with rage. "What did you do to him?"

"He came to visit me, not unlike he did once before. It seemed that I was not the only one able to influence another plane. We engaged and, for the second time, I remained standing." He smiled evilly.

"What did you do to him?" Obi-Wan repeated.

The smile faded from Palpatine's face. "I opened a doorway into the chaos of the Dark netherworld. He is now one Jedi among thousands of Sith. I do not expect his essence to still be intact."

"You're lying," said Obi-Wan. His glow actually seemed to have dimmed. "You don't have that kind of power."

For the first time since entering the room, Arisin spoke. "Didn't you tell me once not to underestimate the powers of the Emperor?"

"Luke, you are a good person," Kenobi pleaded. "Palpatine has entrapped you just as he did your father." The old man looked so pitiful.

"I am nothing like my father," Arisin said sharply. "My father was weak, manipulated. I embraced the Dark Side of my own accord. I'm _still_ a good person, doing real good in the galaxy," he said coldly. "And my name is Darth Arisin."

"Then you have forgotten yourself," said Obi-Wan. He sounded weary, defeated. "You have become the very monster against which you fought for so long."

"No, Obi-Wan," Arisin told him. "I was nothing before. I'm _something_ now. You're right, I _have_ become what I fought against for years, but only because I came to realize that the monster was _me_ all along. What hope did the Rebellion have of winning? All it ever did was cause needless death. It was a pointless war. That was the evil. _That_ was the monster."

"Luke, how can you ally yourself with a man who has destroyed worlds; begun war for personal gain; a man who slaughtered the Jedi, an order devoted to peace and justice?"

Arisin got angry now. "Don't tell me the Jedi were devoted to peace and justice," he growled. "How many worlds were destroyed because the Jedi refused to interfere? How many wars could the Jedi have stopped? Who it was that slaughtered the Sith to the point of extinction, who drove them out of the Order and into exile in the first place? That's right, the _Jedi_. Your order created the Sith, forced them to oppose you when you drove them out. The Jedi were not the saviors they wanted everyone to believe they were. In my opinion, the only justice was their destruction."

Obi-Wan sighed. "The Emperor has twisted your thoughts, Luke. You are not thinking clearly."

"Oh, no. I'm thinking more clearly than I ever have. It's easier to see things as they really are when you're being told the truth. My Master doesn't lie to me, Obi-Wan. Can you match that claim? My whole life, I've been lied to. And this man," he gestured at the Emperor, who watched silently, "the one I have been brought up to hate, has been the only person in my life to tell me the truth."

"The lies were for your own good, Luke," Obi-Wan argued. "We were _protecting_ you, you must understand that."

"Stop calling me that!" Arisin raged. "How _arrogant_ of you to think that you knew what was best for me, to think that you needed to protect me. You had no right!"

"I'm sorry, Luke. I truly am." Obi-Wan shook his head mournfully.

"You haven't answered my question, Master Kenobi," said the Emperor. Obi-Wan snapped his head back to look at him, as though he'd forgotten the man was still in the room. "What were you doing with our young Rebel here?"

Before Obi-Wan could answer, Katarn spoke up. "He was teaching me the ways of the Force. _Someone_ needs to destroy you." He glared at Arisin. "And not fall into bed with you," he added.

The Emperor laughed. "And just how exactly were you planning on destroying me, my young…_Jedi_?"

Katarn said nothing.

"Oh, I see. We weren't supposed to discover your clandestine meeting. Not until you were strong enough, correct? Well," he said, "I'm afraid your little club has been cancelled." His eyes flashed and he bared his teeth. Deadly bolts of energy shot into Katarn, which sent him flying across the cell. He hit the wall and crumpled to the ground, screaming in pain.

"Kyle!" yelled the spectral figure of Obi-Wan.

Not taking his eyes off Katarn, Palpatine snarled, "Quiet, old man. I shall deal with you momentarily." Katarn writhed on the floor of the cell. Palpatine ceased his attack. Smoke rose from Katarn's clothing in faint curls. He stared weakly into the eyes of the Emperor. "That is but a taste of what your death will feel like. You will beg for me to end your life long before your wish is granted, I guarantee you that." Katarn immediately lost consciousness.

"You are an evil man, Palpatine," growled Obi-Wan. "You fooled the Republic and you even fooled the Jedi. But no more."

"I'm sorry, Master Kenobi," Palpatine said politely. "Are you feeling left out?"

"You don't frighten me, Emperor. If you truly opened a portal to the Dark nether realm when Yoda confronted you, you will still be far too weak to do it again." Obi-Wan wore a smug look on his face. "You barely have the power to keep me rooted to your plane."

"Master Kenobi, you are absolutely correct," the Emperor conceded. "I cannot open another doorway. Alone," he added. "How fortunate for me, then, that I have with me the heir of the Chosen One with me to draw strength from." He gave Obi-Wan a wicked grin. "You shall be joining your friend very soon."

"Master?" Arisin said, puzzled.

"Do not worry, Lord Arisin," Palpatine assured him. "You have the power to spare within you. Focus on your hatred of Master Kenobi; remember how he got your mother killed. I shall do the rest."

Arisin narrowed his yellow eyes at the spirit before him, hating it, wanting to send it away forever.

"And now, Master Kenobi, I think it is time for you to be leaving." Palpatine closed his eyes with intense concentration and, just as before, an ethereal breeze seemed to blow around the room, tugging not at their clothing, but at Obi-Wan's. As the spectral wind grew stronger, the familiar vortex formed in the middle of the floor. "Good-bye, Master Kenobi." Palpatine said triumphantly.

"Good-bye, Obi-Wan. My regards to Master Yoda," said Arisin.

"I failed you, Luke," Obi-Wan anguished, yelling over the relentless spirit winds. "I failed you as I failed your father. I'm so sorry." As he lowered his head in defeat, his form began to warp and stretch into the vortex, like matter streaming into a black hole. After a few moments, he was gone. The tear between dimensions had sealed and everything was quiet once more.

"Come," said the Emperor weakly. "We both must rest."

It was then that Arisin felt the extreme drain in a sudden rush. It was as though his own essence had been sucked away. His legs felt like durasteel blocks. It was pure willpower that got him up to his quarters after seeing his master to his office. Once in his room, he sat cross-legged on a circular floor cushion and put himself into a deep trance. He felt his energies recharging. There he sat, unmoving, for several hours, his eyes closed; he did not dream.

* * *

><p>Palpatine sat alone in his office, lights dimmed and shades drawn. He had primarily tapped into Lord Arisin's powers to rip open the fabric of the Dark netherworld. Nevertheless, he had expended a great deal of his own energy in the process. He had been recharging for many hours. As Master Kenobi had said, he was still weakened from his confrontation with Master Yoda.<p>

He wasn't worried about Lord Arisin's powers. He was young and would recover quickly. His upcoming trip to Korriban would increase his powers even further. Palpatine, however, wasn't young anymore. He took longer to recoup.

Presently, he sat in meditation, his energies sufficiently recovered for the time being. Which is why, when his door chimed, he allowed his visitor to enter. It was his Grand Vizier and most trusted staff member, Sate Pestage. Pestage was an older man who had worked for Palpatine since his earliest days as a senator. He was the one person in the galaxy Palpatine could count on as one would a friend.

"Your Majesty, I heard of the HyperGate's success," Pestage said as approached the Emperor. "You must be very pleased."

"I am most pleased, indeed, my friend." He opened his eyes lazily. "The demonstration was spectacular. Everything functioned as projected." He paused. "I sense now that you wonder if I regret it."

Pestage was quiet for a moment. "Well, yes, Your Majesty. It's just that you were born there. Naboo was no longer your home, but you had a certain unbreakable connection to the planet. Surely you felt _something_."

"You may be right," the Emperor admitted. "I do not regret my decision. However, I regret that the decision needed to be made. You are right in saying I have an unavoidable connection to Naboo. I do not feel remorse; pity, perhaps, but King Vera signed Naboo's death warrant when he allowed the Rebels to hide on his world. I made a decision and I stand by it."

"Alright, Your Majesty. Fair enough." He approached the Emperor's desk. "May I sit?" he asked.

"Please do," said the Emperor, gesturing to one of the chairs.

"Thank you." Pestage sat. "I also heard of the scuffle in Katarn's cell."

"My, word travels quickly within these walls," the Emperor quipped. "You heard correctly. It would seem as though Jedi Master Kenobi was not content to remain dead. Our young Rebel friend was receiving audience from beyond the grave. Master Kenobi was desperately attempting to train Katarn to oppose me. Lord Arisin and I took care of the troublesome specter."

"Master Keno—you don't mean Lord Vader's first master, do you?" Pestage asked, bewildered.

Palpatine nodded. "The very same," he said. "It would seem the Jedi know how to anchor their essence to this plane. In a rather primitive fashion, I might add. They seem to remain incorporeal. The Sith of Korriban retain the ability to exists for brief periods in the physical world."

"Well, why didn't _all_ the Jedi come back this way?" the Grand Vizier inquired.

Palpatine pondered for a moment. "I don't believe it was an ability known to all the Jedi. If it were," he smiled, "I dare say my office would be flooded with dead Jedi out for revenge."

Pestage chuckled. "Yes, I suppose you're right. Wouldn't that be a sight?"

"Yes, quite," said the Emperor, imagining just that.

"But they couldn't actually _do_ anything, could they? I mean, it's only their spirits, isn't it? They wouldn't be able to influence our…dimension? Is that even the right word?"

Palpatine shook his head. "I do not pretend to understand what happens to Force users after death. Perhaps they go to another dimension, perhaps a higher plane of existence. What I do know is that there are dark places which death grants us access to and through the power of the Force, it is possible to penetrate, briefly, the fabric that separates our reality from that whirling, screaming darkness and banish those who have chosen to remain beyond their welcome. While Master Yoda was able to influence this plane directly, Master Kenobi seemed to lack that ability. It could well vary from individual to individual. As I said, the Sith are able to retain their essence, and in fact corporeal bodies, on Korriban, including full use of the Force, as well as the ability to travel between the planes, acting as spirits." He sighed. "Perhaps, in time, Lord Arisin and I will uncover the secrets of life after death. It is a far more complex universe than any of us realize."

"That would be most interesting, Your Majesty." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, I originally came here to update you on the progress of Miss Jade and Princess Organa."

"Oh?" said the Emperor, instantly curious. "How are my pets?"

"Doing wonderfully! They have removed Vigo Andar and acquired his two Noghri bodyguards. Apparently, the Noghri have sworn some allegiance to the Princess. Something about her being the daughter of Lord Vader."

"This is unexpected," the Emperor said. "They will certainly make the mission considerably easier." Palpatine thought about that for a moment. He had personally seen these creatures in action and could vouch for their abilities. This mission is a test for the princess. She is to assist Jade. The Noghri added a new variable to the equation. _They are of no consequence_, he thought to himself. He knew she wouldn't allow the guards to do the job for her. It suddenly came to his attention how long he had been silent. "I'm sorry, my friend. Lost in my own thoughts. Is there anything else I should know?"

"Well," Pestage began, "we have received word from the Maw Installation that Gates Three and Four are well under construction and should be ready for deployment within the month."

"Excellent," the Emperor said.

"Yes," said Pestage. "I really think this device will revolutionize trade between worlds, fleet deployment, and even commercial travel. Gates Five and Six have already been commissioned by the Imperial Mining Guild. One Gate will be stationed at the IMG's main facility in the Alderaa asteroid belt and the other will travel to various belts throughout the galaxy, transporting those rocks with high concentrations of useful ore."

"What are the estimated profits?" asked the Emperor.

"Oh, quite reasonable, Your Majesty. The IMG will be able to increase its revenue by at least five hundred percent while decreasing over all cost by ten times. They will be able to completely strip their fleet of everything but the scout ships that will actually locate the ore. This will make materials like transparisteel and durasteel much, much cheaper. Off the top of my head, I would estimate end of year profits to be somewhere around seven or eight trillion credits."

"That is a significant figure," the Emperor said, impressed.

"Yes, sir, it is," said Pestage. "With the war over, the Empire is saving well over three trillion credits annually. Perhaps some tax relief is in order?"

"This is true," said the Emperor, nodding. "And I will sink more credits into the Maw Installation. I do not want another rebellion to gain such strength in the galaxy as this one did. I underestimated them once. I will not make that mistake twice."

"Experience teaches us the most valuable lessons, Your Highness. You, and in turn the Empire, are stronger now," said Pestage sagely.

"You are very right, my friend. As always. Is there anything else?" he asked.

"Nothing of real importance, Your Majesty," said Pestage, standing up. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Yes. Please tell Lord Arisin I wish to see him immediately."

"As you wish, Your Grace." Sate bowed deeply and left the office.

Palpatine closed his eyes once more. Arisin would soon be on Korriban, learning the ancient secrets of Sith past. He remembered well his first visit to the powerful planet…

* * *

><p>The small personal shuttle set down on the barren ground, kicking up a large cloud of red dust that momentarily blocked out the cockpit viewport. As the dust settled, Palpatine got his first up-close view of the planet his master had always spoken of as being the seat of ultimate power in the universe. He said all the knowledge of the Sith could be found here. <em>He said a lot of things<em>, Palpatine thought. _He's dead now_.

With the death of Darth Plagueis came the death of his alter ego, Senator Hego Damask of Coruscant. The Coruscanti Police Force had ruled it an assassination. Presented with massive tissue damage confirmed to have been inflicted by a lightsaber, they suspected, but couldn't prove, a Jedi conspiracy. The Jedi, of course, had nothing to do with the murder. They were merely a convenient scapegoat; something the Jedi vehemently insisted was the case. The Supreme Chancellor, not wanting to risk a full out confrontation with the order, announced to the public that Senator Damask had been killed by a lightsaber-wielding assassin but that it was questionable that the assailant was a Jedi Knight.

Palpatine had laughed at that. _Never were truer words spoken_, he'd thought to himself. He was disappointed that the Jedi had not been publicly accused, but he knew that there would be little chance of that, anyway. He had succeeded in his main goal, which was to discredit the Jedi, to plant the seed of doubt in the mind of the Republic that perhaps the Jedi were looking out for more than just the public's best interests. While the Jedi had been exonerated, the bill that would have given them police authority independent of Senate oversight had died a quick death on the Senate floor.

After the good senator's death, young Palpatine had addressed the Republic a broken man. He had lost not only his employer but also his closest friend and mentor of many years. Palpatine became a household name after that. Before long, another senator had taken it upon himself to take Palpatine under his wing.

Senator Vera had felt it only appropriate to help this lost young man, a child of his own planet, Naboo. Palpatine had accepted his kindness and soon, Vera was carrying on Damask's work, grooming Palpatine as his replacement, the future senator for Naboo and the Chommell sector. First, however, he insisted that Palpatine take three months to mourn, a Naboo tradition dating back millennia. And so Palpatine had left for parts unknown to grieve for his lost master.

Palpatine laughed aloud as he lowered the ramp. He would take his three months, but he would not mourn. He would _learn_.

Dirt crunched underfoot as his boots hit the ground for the first time. Instantly he felt a surge of power. It flowed through his veins like a narcotic. Intoxicating. He looked all around as a light breeze caressed his face and whipped up the dirt around his feet. He sensed no life here, but immense power emanating from everywhere.

As he'd flown over the empty terrain, he had noticed a valley full of enormous stone structures. He knew they had to be the ancient Sith tombs. He'd found the valley of the Sith. If there was anything to be learned here, it would be in that valley.

Often times he had wondered why Plagueis had chosen never to take him here. His naming ceremony had taken place in his master's apartment. There had been candles and a scroll of powerful words, but nothing as formal or official as he had always imagined. Immediately following Plagueis' death, Sidious discovered a description of the Naming amongst the Muun's things. He felt robbed of an important experience. He vowed that when it came time for him to name his apprentice, a Zabrak child he had discovered months before during a mission for Plagueis, he would adhere to tradition.

As tradition stated, Sidious landed well outside the Valley, journeying the rest of the way on foot. He would properly perform his own ceremony before venturing into the tombs. He walked for a long while before coming to a cave. The sun was rapidly falling below the horizon and Sidious felt it a good place to rest for the night. He'd discovered early on in his journey that his Force powers were greatly amplified here. He would use this advantage to aid in sustaining him during the night, warming the air around him as he slipped into deep meditation.

He was ripped out of his meditative state by thunderous crashes coming from outside, echoing loudly around the cave. Sidious, puzzled, went to investigate. As he neared the mouth of the cave, he saw brilliant flashes of light that illuminated everything for kilometers and cast deep shadows throughout the interior of the cave. _Just an electrical storm_, he told himself. They occurred frequently on Coruscant, though they were never as violent as this. According to his initial scan of the planet from orbit, the electromagnetic field was significantly weaker than most inhabited worlds'. It was possible that the increased solar radiation interacting with the atmosphere was responsible for the magnitude of the electrical disturbance. Whatever the cause, he found himself standing for what seemed like hours, just watching the fantastic display of raw power. Lightning charged the air, raising the hair on Sidious' neck. One bolt struck just above the cave entrance, blasting free a large chunk of rock and almost sending Sidious hurtling to the ground. He saw the rock, which had been blown free had landed several meters away from the cave mouth, still glowing a dull red.

He could feel the energy of the storm as it passed slowly overhead. Enchanted by the extreme display of nature's power, he continued to watch the sky being ripped apart by the white-hot bolts of energy. The storm died as the sun rose, bringing with it a cool breeze. Eager to reach his destination within the day, he set off for the valley.

Several hours of walking led him into a wide ravine with high rock walls. The silence was eerie. Even the sound of the wind was lost. He was thirty meters into the ravine when he felt a powerful dark presence nearby.

"Show yourself!" he called out. His words echoed unanswered off the steep walls. "I can feel your presence! Now I demand you show yourself!" He felt no fear.

"A brave young man," boomed a voice. It seemed to come from everywhere at once. "Or foolish."

"The two often walk hand-in-hand," Sidious quipped.

"Do you not fear me, boy?" asked the booming voice.

"I don't," said Sidious. "It takes more than a disembodied voice to scare me."

"Only a fool is without fear," the voice said.

"I never said I was without fear. I merely said that _you_ do not frighten me." Sidious was getting tired of this. "If you do not show yourself, you will be sorry."

The voice laughed. "I would hate to do something I'd regret," it said playfully.

Very suddenly, a figure appeared before Sidious. It was swathed in tattered robes from head to foot and the face that hid in the deep recesses of its hood seemed blurred, like an image viewed through thick glass. It was an imposing being, whatever it was. Easily over two meters tall, it towered over the short Sith Lord. Instead of a lightsaber, Sidious noticed a pair of ancient swords hanging at the figure's belt.

Not the least bit impressed, Sidious asked, "And you are?"

"I," said the figure, his voice now more localized, "am the Dark Underlord, victor of the Battle of Vimsari, Emperor of the Nak'til Empire, and the scourge of more than three hundred Jedi."

"My, that _is_ impressive, Underlord, but the Battle of Vimsari consisted of advanced weaponry against primitive tribes with nothing more than stones," Sidious said, his voice dripping with condescension.

"Why you—!" the Underlord started.

"The Nak'til Empire," Sidious continued, ignoring the outburst, "fell to the Republic over a thousand years ago and very few people have even heard of it."

The Dark Underlord's distorted face contorted with rage.

Sidious pressed on. "And as for being the scourge of over three hundred Jedi, while commendable if true, the number is more likely closer to thirty. Or less." Sidious gave the phantom Sith Lord a triumphant smirk.

The Underlord's eyes were wide with anger and disbelief. "How dare you? I would kill you where you stand—"

"But that I am the sole living Sith Lord in the galaxy and to do so would wipe out our order completely and finally," interrupted. "I do not fear you, my lord, but rather pity you that you are dead and that I shall never know such weakness."

"We shall see who is weak among us," said the phantom. "You say that you do not fear me, so let us discover what you _do _fear. What terrifies you? What are your nightmares made of?"

Before Sidious could respond, he heard a terrible scream from behind.

"Treachery! Betrayal!" Sidious turned to see his master, Darth Plagueis, standing at the mouth of the ravine, lightsaber in hand and very much alive.

"What is this trickery?" demanded Sidious. But the ancient Sith had vanished.

"You will pay for my death, boy!" Plagueis screamed. He ignited his lightsaber and charged.

Sidious likewise ignited his saber and prepared for attack. He knew from experience that he was a better swordsman than his master had been. Plagueis' resurrection wouldn't last long. He ran towards his oncoming master. Upon meeting, their sabers clashed and whirled at blinding speed.

At once, Sidious saw an opening and exploited it. He swiped his blade across the Muun's chest, a killing blow…and nothing happened. It passed through him as though he were made of something as insubstantial as smoke. In Sidious' confusion, Plagueis managed a glancing blow to his right shoulder. Hissing in pain, he kept a firm grip on his saber as he grabbed the wounded shoulder with his left hand. A quick inspection revealed just a flesh wound that, while painful, wasn't serious. It also revealed something very important: Sidious could not inflict damage on Plagueis, but Plagueis could inflict damage on him. Could _kill_ him. This alarmed the young Sith greatly. How could he defeat a seemingly undefeatable opponent? He wasn't given the chance to ponder this question as the Sith Master came at him again, even stronger than before. Sidious had to wonder if his master had, in fact, been able to cheat death. _Has he been alive all this time? Or is it some trick from the Underlord? _At the moment, it didn't matter. All of his effort was going into defending himself from Plagueis' relentless onslaught.

"You will pay!" cried Plagueis as he advanced.

Sidious leapt straight up, avoiding a blow that bit into the rock wall behind him. He kicked off the wall and flewover Plagueis' long head, landing just behind him. In a futile gesture, he plunged his blade through Plagueis' back, getting the same result as before. It was then that he truly felt afraid.

"You're dead!" yelled Sidious. "I killed you!"

Plagueis spun round and kicked Sidious hard in the stomach. Sidious dropped his lightsaber and stumbled backwards, doubled over in pain. He looked up to see Plagueis positioning himself to kick his apprentice again. The blow landed on Sidious' right cheek and he was knocked to the ground. He could feel the cheek swelling and tasted blood. His nose was likewise dripping blood down his chin. Plagueis stood over him, blade held high.

"And now, Sidious, you will die," the Muun Sith Lord said triumphantly.

As Plagueis brought the blade bearing down on the helpless man, Sidious instinctively shoved him back with the Force. To his surprise, Plagueis was tossed against the wall with a grunt, falling to his knees but keeping a firm grip on his lightsaber. When he stood, Sidious noticed a trickle of blood at the corner of Plagueis' thin mouth. He could be hurt.

"And I shall kill you again, my master," Sidious said quietly.

Plagueis leapt at Sidious, a feral, inhuman scream escaping his throat. Sidious quickly called his saber to his hand and ignited it in time to meet Plagueis', the blades squealing in protest. Sidious pushed him away again, more violently and with greater control this time. Again, Plagueis hit the wall with a pained grunt. And again, he rushed back at Sidious. Letting out a primal yell, Sidious wrapped himself in the Dark Side and released a wave of pure fury. It seemed to seep out of every pore, to make his scream somehow tangible. His eyes squeezed shut, and he felt a burst of immense power leave his body and expand in every direction. Once more, the alien was thrown against the ravine wall. He hit with a sick crunch and fell to the ground, unmoving, his lightsaber deactivated a meter away. Sidious opened his eyes. He saw thin wisps of smoke rising from the broken body of his master. He now stood in a shallow crater; the ground for five meters in every direction was slagged. Breathing hard, he allowed himself a thought. _I won_.

He'd killed his master.

Again.

Breathless and weak, he stepped over to the smoking corpse, prodding it with his foot. His cheek and shoulder were both throbbing painfully. His head jerked up when he heard someone clapping, the sound echoing all around.

"Very good, boy! You have faced your greatest fear and triumphed." It was the Dark Underlord.

"And just what was my greatest fear? Certainly not my master." Sidious was furious that he'd been tested without warning.

"No. Your greatest fear is what all intelligent beings fear above all else: Death. You were faced with an enemy who could not be killed but who could kill _you_. A truly hopeless situation."

"Then tell me why his corpse is smoldering at my feet," Sidious snarled.

"Ah, because he _could_ be killed, just not with a lightsaber," the specter responded. "You were forced to abandon the obvious and attempt the unorthodox. I am impressed with your performance."

"Well thank you," Sidious said sarcastically. "Will you allow me to pass?"

"Just where are you going, my young lord?" the Underlord asked.

"Ancient texts speak of a cave, inside which is the Chamber of Names."

"But you have already been named, Sidious. What business have you in the Chamber of Names?"

"My master named me on Coruscant. I wish for an official ceremony."

The figure seemed too think a moment. "This is very unorthodox," he said at last. "No one has ever made such a request. I shall have to confer with the Council. You may continue your quest, boy. Go to the Chamber. We shall have an answer for you upon your arrival."

Sidious, his anger lessened somewhat, nodded. "You do that. I'll be expecting one when I get to the Chamber."

"The Force be with you on your quest." The Dark Underlord then faded into the air and Sidious was alone once more.

Invigorated by his experience, he set out for the cave immediately. Though he hadn't the slightest clue where it was, the Force gave him all the direction he needed. After less than a day's travel, he arrived.

The entrance stood before him, a two-meter hole in the solid rock of the mountain. On either side was a torch, each burning with an eerie black flame. Harsh Sith runes spelled out a warning above the entrance: _E tu nal v tiem s Mastu al e Mogtem_; "Those unworthy of the Masters shall meet their death." Sidious smiled. He was worthy of the Masters. He was the most powerful being to stand before that cave and would not meet his death that day.

Inside the cave, he found more writing, illuminated by more of the black flame torches. Text covered the walls. He took the time to read some of it. It spoke of more warnings; tales of Sith Masters long dead, battles fought millennia ago. There were stories of the rise of great Masters. Sidious approached a blank spot on the wall and removed his lightsaber. He would leave behind his own story, his legacy. He lit the blade and shortened it to a few centimeters. He began to carve.

He told the story of his training, his coming to power, and the death of his master. Finally, he wrote of the future. _His_ future. He explained his prophecy; how he would rid the galaxy of the Jedi and bring the Sith back into the seat of power. He hoped that the next Master to walk this path would read and confirm this bold statement. He reread his saga and, satisfied, replaced his saber on his belt, journeying deeper into the cave in search of the Chamber.

A further fifteen minutes of walking brought him to his destination. Up ahead, he espied an opening in the cave wall. This was it. He quickened his pace until he was practically sprinting. He slowed as he approached, taking everything in. Just a few meters ahead of him was everything he sought for himself. The Chamber of Names. He closed his eyes and entered.

He opened his eyes and peered around the chamber. It was dark, save for a faint glow coming from what appeared to be an elaborate throne adorned with countless luminescent jewels. He allowed his eyes to adjust to the dim light before proceeding any deeper into the chamber. When he stood in the center, he finally spoke.

"I've come to be named!" he cried out. "Masters of Korriban, I am here!"

Initially, nothing happened. He was about to call out again when a cold breeze started to swirl around him. Light suddenly flared up from a hundred candles, momentarily blinding him. Now illuminated, Sidious could clearly see the chamber's every detail. It looked to be almost perfectly round, at least twenty meters in diameter. Thick tapestries covered the walls, each one commemorating a great battle or victory over the Light. He saw before him a dais, upon which sat the throne whose bejeweled surface glowed with an eerie Dark light. It was made of rich wood, thousands of years old. Off to his right stood an altar, rather plain compared to the rest of the chamber. On the altar sat a rough stone basin. He knew what it was. It could only be the Blood Chalice. In it the Master and the Apprentice mix their blood, symbolizing the Apprentice's advancement into the Order of the Sith by becoming a Dark Lord the same as his Master.

He felt Darkness all around him, the cold wind still blowing. He knew he was not alone.

"Masters, I beg you to name me!" he cried.

The wind stopped. A figure suddenly stood before him, appearing out of nowhere. It was not the Dark Underlord. This man was very tall with broad shoulders. Gauntlets more ornate than Sidious had ever seen adorned his large hands. He wore thick hide boots, likely rancor leather. Whatever else the man was wearing was hidden from view by a heavy black robe, pinned closed at the neck with a beautifully crafted and elaborate clasp. Sidious was greatly attracted to the robe. It seemed to radiate a subtle sense of power and authority, two of the things he craved most. One day, he knew that he, too, would wear a robe just like it.

The man lifted his gloved hands and lowered his hood. Sidious was startled to see such a young man staring back at him. His face was fair but not pale and surprisingly handsome by some Human standards. He had high cheekbones and a severe, square jaw. His head was completely bald and his eyes were fierce, luminescent yellow orbs set back deep in his skull. And they were staring directly into Sidious.

"You have come to be named," the Sith Lord said in a deep, powerful voice. "Yet you come alone. Your Master has already named you and you have succeeded him as the Dark Lord of the Sith."

Sidious spoke to the specter, maintaining eye contact. "This is true, my Lord. At the time of my initial naming, I was unaware of this long standing and glorious tradition. I cannot help but feel that I will not be able to live to my fullest potential until I am properly named and recognized in the Dark Side by the great Masters of Korriban."

The man seemed to ponder this a moment, stroking his chin as he thought. "Such a situation has never in a thousand years occurred," he said. "However, you speak wise words. The Council shall decide." He brought his hands together in an ear-splitting clap that thundered and reverberated unnaturally throughout the chamber. At once, seven new figures appeared behind him. One of them Sidious recognized immediately as the Dark Lord he'd met in the ravine. The others Sidious couldn't name.

"These are the Masters of Korriban," boomed the large bald Master. "More inhabit this place, but these are the Council of Darkness. I believe you already know one of our number," he said, gesturing at the Underlord. "Among the rest, there is Lord Freedon Nadd, Lord Naga Sadow, Lord Exar Kun, Lord Marka Ragnos, Darth Xiost, Lord Shest, and," he said, pounding a fist on his own chest, "I am Darth Bane."

As impressed as he was with the celebrity of some spirits in the room, Sidious could have been trampled by a stampeding bantha and not been more surprised by the identity of the figure standing before him. Darth Bane had survived the Battle of Ruusan and had rewritten the Sith Code. It was he who wrote the Rule of Two: _Never again shall the Sith become obese in numbers, the Dark Side spread thin among many. There shall be only two: one to embody the power and one to crave it._ And now, the man who had shaped the Sith into its sharpest, most lethal form, stood before him.

Composing himself, Sidious found his voice. "It is indeed an honor to be in the company of Masters such as yourselves. I have read of all of you and know too well how great your victories were, and how great your power remains."

"He wishes to be named," boomed Lord Bane. "What says the Council of Darkness?"

"I recognize him," cried the Dark Underlord immediately.

"As do I," said Freedon Nadd.

So it went around the Council. Darth Sidious was unanimously recognized as Dark Lord of the Sith in the Dark Side.

"It would seem the Council has spoken. You are to be named." Lord Bane motioned for Sidious to sit upon the throne. As he sat, he couldn't help but feel that this was the most important day of his life.

* * *

><p>"You wanted to see me, Master?" Arisin asked as he strode past the pair of Royal Guards into the Emperor's office.<p>

The Emperor was pulled back from his journey into the past to the present. "Yes," he said. "Lord Arisin, you shall leave immediately for Korriban. You may land within the Valley this time. I must warn you, many tombs are protected with powerful Sith magicks. Do not expect all to allow you access freely."

"I expected nothing less," said Arisin. "I'm sure I can handle anything I'm confronted with."

"Do not underestimate the danger of the Old Ones," Palpatine scolded his apprentice. "Though long dead, their power is still great. I would be most disappointed if the most promising of my pupils was to foolishly allow himself to be killed."

"That won't happen, Master." Arisin vowed.

"See that it does not, Lord Arisin. Be prepared. You still have much to learn. But," he said, "that is what this mission is for. Now go. Take my shuttle. You'll find it already has the coordinates programmed into the navigational computer."

Arisin bowed and left.

"Learn well, my boy. Learn well."

* * *

><p>As the starlines reverted to pinpoints, Arisin saw the familiar dusty orb hanging before him. Korriban. Even from orbit, he could feel the power radiating off it. He quickly located the Valley of the Dark Lords and angled the shuttle to enter the atmosphere. The Valley appeared to be entering into night. Once landed, Arisin would sleep in the shuttle and get an early start as soon as the sun rose.<p>

The shuttle handled beautifully. As he entered the thin atmosphere, the ship sliced through the air with almost no resistance. The advanced stabilizers and inertial dampers allowed for a smooth and trouble-free descent to the planet's surface.

He flew low over the ground, kicking up a great trail of dust in his wake. Following the route he'd taken on foot, he began recognizing familiar landmarks. The terrain had become rocky and had begun to elevate, forcing Arisin to fly higher. He flew over the ravine where he'd met Lord Kun. At the site where he'd faced a rancor, a skeletal claw still protruded from the ground where he had entombed it in molten rock. He saw the entrance to the cave that led to the naming chamber several kilometers farther north. He brought the shuttle higher still and rose above the plateau where their ship had landed the previous visit. Beyond the mountain lay the Valley of the Dark Lords, the Valley of the Sith.

The valley was a sprawling city of dilapidated structures. Hundreds of stone tombs, some adorned with huge statues, filled the enormous basin. Some were built freestanding, but others were carved into the solid rock walls of the surrounding mountains and hills. There were low-lying tombs and grand, several-hundred-meter-tall temples. The Emperor had told him that the pyramidal shape of some of the crypts helped to channel the Dark Side. It was no surprise, then, that the structures with that shape were the most intact of them all. He circled the valley twice before finding a suitable clearing to set down. By the time the ship came to rest on the dusty surface, the sun was well on its way to falling below the horizon, offering only a few more minutes of meager daylight until night on the Sith world fell. Arisin powered down the ship and headed for the small sleeping cabin to rest until sunup. He lowered himself to the floor of the cramped quarters and closed his eyes, slipping into a dreamless trance.

When he woke from his meditation and checked the viewport it was still dark, but he could see faint rays of light starting to bleed into the sky along the horizon. With the planet's fast rotation, he knew the sun would be up very soon. He decided to begin his trek before the sun rose fully. He had no idea how long he'd have to be there, but he felt that it was going to be a long day.

When he exited the ship, he was wrapped in a cold blanket of desert air that reminded him unpleasantly of early mornings on Tatooine. He pulled his robes tight and stepped down the gangplank. As he trod upon the surface, he was met with the familiar sensation of electricity flowing through his body. He literally tingled with power.

Ignorant as to which tomb belonged to whom, he decided to simply start with the nearest one and work out from there. It was an impressive construct, carved into the bare rock of the valley wall, its entrance flanked on either side by massive statues, each towering at least thirty meters over the valley floor. They stood with their arms outstretched. Their hands were cupped and held in each palm was a flickering black flame, lit millennia ago. Enormous columns stood to either side of a pair of huge wooden doors. The doors, somehow staving off the rot of centuries, were inscribed with the same harsh writing that he'd encountered inside the Sith cave.

As he approached the doors, he was amazed by their sturdy appearance; they were easily three times his height and appeared to be quite heavy. Atop all of that, he didn't know what sort of Sith magic protected the tomb. He placed a hand to the smooth wood, somehow hoping an answer would come to him. To his surprise, the doors swung open easily, gliding on silent hinges. Half a dozen thoughts entered his head. Perhaps it opened automatically by some hidden mechanical hinge. Maybe the owner had used a Sith spell to ensure that only a Sith could enter. Or perhaps the door had simply opened because he had pushed on it. Instead of standing there wondering why the doors had open, he opted for taking advantage of the fact that they _had_. He stepped cautiously into the crypt.

As he proceeded into the tomb, more black flame torches lit, flaring up all around the large chamber. It appeared to be one large room, hollowed out of the mountain face. The tomb was dominated by a central dais, upon which sat an elaborately carved stone slab. On the slab lay the perfectly preserved body of a man. Arisin stepped up to the dais and gazed down upon the ancient Sith Lord. He wore simple battle armor and his bearded face was scarred by what appeared to be a wicked burn. Arisin guessed he was in his late sixties when he died, though he couldn't be certain. The cause of death was an obvious lightsaber slash to the chest that had burnt away the armor and clothing beneath it to bite deeply into his torso.

"Who are you?" he asked aloud to himself.

"I am called Lord Malloc," said a voice. At first Arisin thought the body had spoken. Then he felt the presence beside him. He turned to see a man standing next to him, the same man who lay before him dead on the slab.

"Lord Malloc?"

"Yes. What is it you seek here, boy?" One of his eyes was a milky white, useless. "I allowed you to enter because I felt a great Darkness in you."

Arisin spoke firmly. "I am Darth Arisin. I'm here to study, to learn. I was sent by my Master to gather the knowledge of the Sith."

"Your master would be Lord Sidious?" asked Malloc.

"He would."

"Yes, I remember him well," said Malloc. "Very powerful. I imagine some time has passed since he was here."

"The Emperor has been here before?" inquire Arisin.

"Emperor? My, young Sidious has worked his way up in the galaxy. When he was here last, I believe he was going to run for a spot in the Senate. Something about defeating the Jedi via the stylus and not the saber." Malloc shook his head. "I really hadn't a clue what he was talking about, but I sensed a great power within him, so I allowed him access to my knowledge."

"He became a senator," Arisin told the Sith spirit. "And he was elected Supreme Chancellor after that."

"A Sith became president of the Republic Senate under the Jedi's haughty noses?" asked Malloc, astonished.

Arisin nodded. "The Jedi had no idea," he said. "When the time came, he was able to wipe them out in one fell swoop."

"But, how did he manage that?"

"He was Supreme Chancellor for thirteen years," Arisin explained. "The galaxy trusted and respected him. He was able to convince the Senate that the Jedi were taking over, which I'm certain now that they would have. He declared them the enemies of the Republic after they attempted to forcibly remove him from office. Most Jedi were killed by soldiers of the Republic. The rest were hunted down by my master's apprentice, Vader."

"Ah," said Malloc. "Now _there_ is a name I know. I was present for his official naming ceremony. I felt there was something dangerously off about him."

Arisin nodded again. "Yes. He served my master for over two decades, but sought to betray him the entire time. Vader died at my hand a month ago."

"There were rumors that Vader had a son," Malloc said. "I imagine that would be you." He didn't phrase it as a question.

"Yes," Arisin said again. "Vader also had a daughter, my twin sister. She is apprenticed to my master as well."

"A second apprentice? Master Bane wrote that there may be only two," warned Malloc. "Those tenets were put in place after my death, but I've come to see the wisdom in the practice."

"Yes," said Arisin, "but the threat of the Jedi is gone. The Sith are free to increase in numbers again."

"And just how do you plan to do that? The Rule of Two wasn't just implemented because of the Jedi." Malloc shook his head. "Bane's rules saw the concentration of power funneled into just two individuals; he expressly stated that the Dark Side weakens when spread amongst many."

Arisin was growing tired of this conversation. "It will happen," he told the spirit. "I promise you. Now, I would like access to your holocron. Where is it?"

Somewhat hesitantly, Malloc said. "You may study it, but it may not pass the threshold."

"What?" Arisin fumed. "How am I supposed to learn the secrets inside if I can't study it in my ship?" He was outraged. "I _need_ to be able to take it with me!"

"If you desire the information that much, then it is worth it to you to come back. As many times as it takes. You will learn that the knowledge should be uncovered over time, not all at once." Malloc gestured at his holocron, which sat on a pedestal a short distance from the dais. "The conditions are simple. You may come and go as you please. The holocron is at your disposal within this tomb. To remove it would bring about severe and unpleasant consequences."

Arisin was decidedly less than intimidated by any threat of consequences, but perhaps Malloc was right; perhaps it would be best to learn slowly. He had as much time as he needed. "Alright," he said. "Agreed. Shall we get started, then?"

For several consecutive days he returned to the tomb of Darth Malloc. He soon discovered that Malloc was neither the most powerful nor the wisest of the Sith Lords of old. The information held in his holocron was very basic and poorly explained.

"Anger and hatred fuel the Dark Side," said the small holographic figure. "With the Dark Side comes power. With power, anything is possible."

"And how is that helpful?" Arisin asked, frustrated by the childish instructions.

"You will find it more helpful once you stop asking questions and start listening to the answers."

"What answers?" Arisin fumed. "You're talking in circles!"

"Please refine your question." The small hovering figure looked at him. "Please refine your quest—" Arisin shut the holocron. He was getting nowhere and wasting time that could be spent searching other tombs. On the fourth day, he abandoned Malloc's tomb in search of something more fruitful.

He next sought out the most impressive crypt he could find, which happened to be a half-kilometer walk from Malloc's tomb. Like Malloc's, it was carved from solid rock into the valley wall. Its façade was incredible: an enormous seated figure of a robed man at least a hundred meters tall and projecting out from the rock wall easily half that. A steep set of steps led from the ground up the front to the figure's yawning mouth, in which appeared to be the tomb's entrance. Arisin stood before the first step, taking in the grandiose structure. Finally, he began to ascend.

* * *

><p>Palpatine allowed his gaze to wander out his window up to the sky. The Death Star would soon eclipse the sun, as it did twice every day. Though it no longer belonged to him, he was still very proud of it. He had given it to the princess as a gesture of good faith. Not unexpectedly, the first thing she had done was decommission and dismantle the superlaser. She then had requested that the station be completed and retrofitted, converted from a military space station to a habitation sphere, an artificial world that people could call home, a place where all displaced Alderaanians, made homeless by the first Death Star, could live comfortably for the rest of their lives at the Empire's expense.<p>

Palpatine, true to his word, approved her every request. Her servitude was well worth the cost. Even at that very moment, as construction was being completed, the station's interior was being transformed. Huge gardens and parks were being installed. Windows offering spectacular views of Coruscant were planned, as were countless zoos and wildlife refuges featuring every native species of plant and animal life on file from the dead world. After completion, the Death Star, to be christened New Alderaan, would resemble a small world more than the moon-sized battle station that it was intended to be. The Emperor had to smile at her persistent do-good attitude. She was very clever, he had to admit. He had fully expected her simply to order the station's demolition.

He brought his gaze downward to the planet's surface, to the ancient Jedi temple. Its once graceful towers now stood blackened and charred, a reminder of the night the Jedi fell. How well he remembered that black evening.

He had sensed the four Jedi Masters coming to arrest him. He knew that that night, his shroud would finally fall and the Jedi would at long last know the face of their destruction. He had been dealt his hand and was going to declare Sabacc and take the pot. That night belonged to him. The only thing that had stood in his way was the Jedi Order. And the noose had already been placed around their collective throats. All that remained for him to do was kick away the chair.

He remembered how good it felt to have his saber up his sleeve, eager to lay waste to everything in its path. Though it had been decades since he'd used it in proper battle, when the time was right, it had found his hand and danced flawlessly to the tune of the Fall of the Jedi. It sang a hymn of the Dark Side as its master waged war against the Jedi cancer. Though it had not landed the killing blow, its fiery dance symbolized the end of the dogmatic Jedi Order.

How he wished he could have entered the fray at Jedi Temple amidst the blazing rifles and slashing sabers, killing as many Jedi as he could, killing those who forced him to live his true life in the shadows.

_My revenge was sweet_, thought the Emperor. _Mine was a revenge of the Sith, a revenge spanning millennia._

As he turned to sit behind his desk, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the transparisteel window. He held a hand up to his ancient and disfigured face, allowing himself a rare moment on vanity.

"How I do miss the face of Palpatine," he said aloud. His scars were a constant reminder of what he'd fought against to achieve his goals. He refused to allow a surgeon to repair a single wrinkle. He wore his mantle proudly as a badge of honor. In the end, it was well worth it.

So long ago, it seemed, that that night fell. He still remembered well the searing pain as his own hatred was forced back at him, tearing into his face. That night, everything had changed…

Palpatine sat in the antechamber to his main Chancellor's office. He could feel the four Jedi approaching, all of them powerful Masters. The door slid open and the Jedi stormed in, taking a stand between him and the exit. Leading the Jedi was Master Mace Windu, Masters Saesee Tiin, Agen Kolar, and Kit Fisto flanking him tightly.

"Master Windu," Palpatine said with a friendly smile as the leader of the Jedi Council strode in. His expression portrayed complete ignorance of the Jedi's intentions. "I take it General Grievous has been destroyed then?" His smile faded into feigned confusion. "I must say, you're here earlier than expected."

"In the name of the Galactic Senate of the Republic," said Windu, igniting his shining purple blade, "you are under arrest, Chancellor." The other Jedi followed suit, igniting their sabers.

"Are you threatening me, Master Jedi?" Palpatine growled, enraged at their gall in taking it upon themselves to arrest the Chancellor himself without any authority whatsoever.

"The Senate will decide your fate," Windu replied. He gave the Chancellor a glare as hard as durasteel.

"I _am_ the Senate!" Palpatine croaked with a sneer. This was his moment. He allowed his concealed weapon to slide home, felt the cool alloy fill his palm behind his back.

"Not yet," Windu said defiantly.

"It's treason, then," Palpatine announced, red fire springing forth from his hand. Without warning, he leapt, corkscrewing through the air at the four dumbfounded Jedi Masters. As he flew, he let out a feral roar, more animal than human. Before the Jedi knew what had happened, Palpatine, now fully revealed to be the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, had impaled Master Kolar through the chest. Master Tiin was next, slashed from shoulder to hip, his internal organs flash boiling in an instant. Of the three Jedi Masters accompanying Windu, Master Fisto was the only one to get so much as a single strike in before his death. The scream was still on his lips when Master Windu engaged the Sith in the outside hallway, dancing into the main office.

Slipping deep into Vaapad, it took every ounce of skill Master Windu had just to offer up a defense against the Chancellor's savage attack. He hopped back a step, the Sith Lord's blade narrowly missing his torso. The Chancellor hissed, a sound so unsettling that Windu was briefly caught off guard.

They danced all through the grand office; Palpatine leapt off of a conical holoprojector as he retreated towards his desk. They shattered the enormous panoramic window wall with two well-placed slashes and the cold Coruscant night poured into the room. The wind howled, tearing at their clothing. Transparisteel slivers crunched beneath their boots and neither took any notice of the thousand meter drop just centimeters away.

Palpatine had felt Anakin's anxiety ever since his meeting with the boy an hour before, when he had revealed his true identity to the young Jedi Knight. The Sith been tracking Skywalker's presence from the time he left the office and he could feel the young Jedi approaching quickly. It was now or never. Palpatine lowered his guard and allowed Master Windu a free kick, which sent him tumbling to the ground. His lightsaber deactivated and flew out of his hand and out the shattered window. Master Windu brought his violet saber to bear on Palpatine and advanced, his blade pointed directly at the Chancellor's throat.

"Anakin!" the Chancellor cried as the Jedi Knight entered the room. His voice had changed to that of a frightened old man. "I told you it would come to this! The Jedi are taking over!"

A bewildered Anakin was held at bay by Master Windu's raised hand warning him to stay back.

"You are under arrest, _my lord_," said Windu, his words dripping with disdain and condescension. "The oppression of the Sith will never return. You have _lost_!"

Too furious to maintain his guise of fear, Palpatine's face contorted in rage. "No! No! _You_ will die!" Sprawled out on the window ledge, he unleashed a volley of deadly lightning towards the Jedi Master. Though surprised, Windu managed to bring up his blade in time to block the Dark energy.

Tendrils of hate leapt from the Chancellor's fingertips, wrapping around Master Windu's blade, which crackled and popped in protest. The smell of ozone grew strong as the assault intensified. Windu angled his blade downwards, deflecting the Sith lightning back at its caster.

"He's a traitor!" screamed Palpatine. He looked pleadingly at Anakin, who stood back, unsure of what to do.

"Don't listen to him, Anakin!" yelled Master Windu, not taking his eyes off the prone Sith. "_He_ is the traitor!" He was desperately trying to maintain a hold on his blade. His defense was weakening. So was Palpatine's.

"I have the power to save the ones you love!" cried Palpatine. "You must choose. Don't let him kill me!" The Sith feigned terror once more.

The Chancellor's attack began to lessen, until finally, it ceased. Both men locked gazes, breathing hard. The Chancellor's face lay in ruins and his delicate wisps of smoke wafted up from his fine clothing.

"Anakin," Palpatine groaned painfully. "I-I'm too weak. I can't hold on any longer."

Master Windu advanced on the crippled old man and raised his blade to strike him down. "I'm going to end this once and for all," he said savagely.

"No, Master," Anakin said, suddenly finding his voice. "He must stand trial!"

"He has control of the courts _and_ the Senate. He's too dangerous to be kept alive." Windu looked menacingly at Palpatine, who peered back at him with carefully calculated terror in his eyes.

"Please, don't kill me!" he begged, glancing over to gauge Anakin's reaction.

"It's not the Jedi way," pleaded Anakin as Windu prepared to strike. "I need him!"

"Please!" cried the Chancellor desperately, again peering at the troubled young Jedi. "Don't kill me!"

Windu slashed down at the Sith.

"No!" screamed Anakin, who, in one fluid moment, lit his own lightsaber and sheared through Master Windu's wrist. The air instantly filled with the sick tinge of burned muscle and bone. The lightsaber fell from the dead grip and tumbled with the hand onto the floor. Windu looked at Anakin in amazement and screamed in pain.

Palpatine had won. Dropping the act, the Sith Lord sat up straight and smiled. He unleashed his devastating lightning attack on the now unarmed Jedi Master.

"Power!" the Sith cried as he poured waves of blue-white lightning into the writhing Jedi. Windu, still screaming, struggled to stay standing under the onslaught. "Unlimited power!"

Windu's agonized screams reverberated around the office as the Dark lightning tore into his body, illuminating the bones beneath his skin. With one last surge of hatred, Palpatine triumphantly hurled Windu off the ledge and far out into the Coruscant night where the Jedi Master fell forever.

"What have I done?" lamented a dumbstruck Anakin, who absentmindedly lowered himself onto a padded seat beside the desk. His lightsaber fell from his loose grip with a dull thud and rolled on the lavish red carpet of the Chancellor's office.

Palpatine climbed bodily to his feet and stepped over to the distressed Jedi. "You are fulfilling your destiny, Anakin."

The Emperor came back to the present.

Yes, that'd been the greatest night of his life. It had seen the death of the Jedi Order and the birth of his Empire. There were times that he longed for some Jedi to come out of the woodwork, some survivor of the Purge, just so that he could feel the satisfaction of their death once more. But there had been no word of survivors in recent years.

_I need not worry about that_, he thought to himself. _There will always be Jedi to fight one way or another._

* * *

><p>"Alright, everybody," called Mara over the ship's intercom. "Time to strap yourselves in." The <em>Jade Sabre<em> had begun its entry into the planet's outer atmosphere.

She looked out over the snow-covered terrain with a sour look on her face. Though she was hardly looking forward to this mission, the Princess was even less pleased when she'd finally gotten the destination out of Jade: Hoth.

Some time after the evacuation of the Rebel base, Vigo Sariss Arkan had converted it into his own private safe house. According to Imperial Intelligence, Echo Base had been rebuilt and reinforced. Every entrance was guarded by automated gun turrets and, it was rumored, captured wampas. Additionally, he had a contingent of at least forty mercenaries patrolling the base at all times. This would be no walk in the park.

At first, Leia had wondered why a Black Sun vigo, rich beyond most beings' wildest dreams, would choose such a remote and unforgiving landscape as his base of operations. But Mara had informed her that Arkan was a Whipid, a wiry-haired tusked alien that hailed from a planet very similar to Hoth. He likely felt very much at home, which gave him the advantage. Of course, they had certain advantages of their own in the form of two Noghri bodyguards. _Plus_, she thought to herself, _we both have the Force. And lightsabers._

She found her hand slipping instinctually to her hip, where she felt the comforting weight of her elegant weapon. It wasn't really hers, of course, was it? But, for now, it would have to do.

She located the environmental survival suit under the flight couch in the _Saber_'s passenger hold. It was made of a thin, form-fitting material that protected against heat, cold, and short periods of vacuum. She slipped in on. A little tight, but it would get her through the mission. She turned to the Noghri.

"You guys need anything?" she asked them.

"We do not," said Drey.

"Our fur is far more insulating than it appears," added Kay.

"You're sure?" she asked.

"They said they were fine," said Mara, walking into the hold, her fiery hair standing out against the pale grey of her snowsuit. She looked at Leia. "Good, you found the enviro-suit."

"Yeah, thanks for making sure I packed for a Hoth summer," Leia said sarcastically.

"Hey, Princess, you could've asked where we were going before we even left Coruscant," said Mara, raising her hands in mock defense.

"I'm asking now," said Leia with fire in her eyes.

"Say please," Mara said coldly.

Without warning, a medpack flew across the hold and hit the bulkhead centimeters from Mara's head.

"Please," said Leia sweetly. She hadn't moved a muscle. Her measure of control over the Force was getting better every day.

"Stars' end, Princess!" yelped Mara. "No need to get so frakkin' testy! The next two planets are Falucia and Coruscant."

Leia had never heard of Falucia, but Coruscant?

"What? Why couldn't we have done Coruscant _first_?" she yelled.

"Think about it, Princess. Who would be on Coruscant?"

"Breyac," Leia said after a moment's consideration.

"Exactly," said Mara. "You go for the central head of your hydra first and the other heads get wise. Take out the lesser heads first, you can nab the central head before it even knows what hit it," explained Mara. "By the time Breyac hears about the deaths of his lieutenants, we'll already be knocking on his door."

"Alright," conceded Leia, "I _suppose_ that makes sense. What about Falucia? I've never heard of it."

"It was a Separatist stronghold during the Clone Wars. You do know who _they_ were, right?" asked Mara.

A cargo crate began to lift dangerously off the floor.

"Ok," she said quickly. "Anyway, our good Vigo Mordsun has taken up residence in the old command center." Mara was tired of explaining things. "C'mon. It's time to go and light is wasting. Everybody ready?" She looked over at the two Noghri.

They looked at one another. "We are," said Drey.

"As I'll ever be," added Leia.

"Good. So let's go then, huh?" Mara headed down the corridor out of sight.

As Leia followed, she heard the whine of hydraulics and felt a blast of icy air hit her unprotected face.

"Here," said Mara as Leia approached. She tossed her a pair of goggles and a thick scarf. "Put these on." Mara was already wearing hers.

"Thanks. You might want to hide that mane of yours," said Leia, pointing at Mara's bright red hair. "Unless your plan is to be seen from ten kilometers away."

Mara scoffed but pulled her hood tightly around her head.

"So how far are we going?"

"About ten minutes' walk," Mara answered. "Far enough that if you get lost, you might just _stay_ lost. So try not to wander off by yourself."

Leia glared at Mara. "I'll try to resist the urge," she said through gritted teeth.

"Let's go," Mara said, stepping down the ramp.

Once everyone was on planet, she locked up the ship and consulted her datapad.

"This way," she said, pointing and trudging through the snow.

"You sure?" asked Leia, her voice muffled by the scarf she'd wrapped around her mouth and nose.

Mara didn't bother with an answer.

For a day on Hoth, Leia had to admit it wasn't bad. The sky was clear and blue. Visibility was at least a hundred klicks in any direction. They crunched through the knee-high snow quickly and quietly, making good time across the landscape.

Soon Leia saw something familiar. Several somethings, in fact. Off to the west was the giant ion cannon the Rebellion had used to disable orbiting Star Destroyers when they had made their frantic escape. Off to the east were the charred remains of the massive power generator. Though it had only been a year, the ruins were almost completely reclaimed by the snowdrifts. And finally, directly ahead, were the southern blast doors of Echo Base. She remembered the gut-wrenching sound they made as they slammed shut, locking the two men she loved out in the rapidly plummeting temperature of night on Hoth.

She remembered as Major Derlin had made that difficult decision.

_But_, she thought, _everything had turned out all right._

The other Hand seemed to penetrate her thoughts. "No time for nostalgia, Princess. We have a job to do," Mara said as she waded past her, the snow now up to their thighs. Her breath came out a thick white cloud. It was _cold_.

Leia turned to look behind her. "How're you guys doing back there?" she asked the Noghri.

"We are well," said Drey. Or it could have been Kay. She still couldn't quite tell them apart yet.

"Why would one choose such a desolate place to live?" asked the other one.

"Necessity," said Leia, herself having made the decision to relocate the Rebellion there.

Leia turned back around, expecting Mara to be glaring at her, telling her to quit the chatter and hurry up. Instead, she found only empty terrain. Mara had vanished.

"Just great," Leia said to herself. "She tells _me_ not to wander off then disappears herself."

Drey—or Kay—came up beside her. "Is there something wrong, Lady Vader?"

"Oh, nothing much," she said. "Our navigator just vanished, that's all."

"Should we not call for her?" asked Kay—or Drey.

"Not until we know for certain that someone else isn't listening," Leia said. "Until then, we find her quietly. She can't be far."

* * *

><p>Lord Arisin gazed back at the ruins of the great stone seal, thinking once more that he should have just answered the riddle. Instead, he had taken the easy way out and just blasted the door with a well-aimed wave of frustration. Simply put, he had climbed a steep, hundred meter set of stairs and was in no mood to answer a silly puzzle.<p>

It wasn't, however, the regret of having destroyed a priceless artifact that caused his retrospective thinking.

He dove for cover as a spear-like tail whipped the ground where he had just been standing.

No, it was the giant stone vornskyrs animated by the Dark Side when he failed to solve the puzzle that was the source of his regret.

In life, vornskyrs are two-meter long, ill-tempered canids with long, whip-like tails tipped with a poisonous barb. These, however, were not live vornskyrs and their stone counterparts made the real things seem like Ewok cubs in comparison.

So far, he had managed to sprain an ankle, destroy an ancient clay chalice, and cleave a seven-thousand year old tapestry in two. The two stone super-vornskyrs, on the other hand, remained quite intact. They appeared immune to the Force, as he'd heard their living cousins were, and were surprisingly agile for "creatures" that must each weight well over a ton of solid stone.

Arisin risked a glance around the tomb in an attempt to locate anything he could use as a weapon against the stone beasts. His lightsaber had flown out of his hand and its location was currently unknown. He was beginning to have a very bad feeling about the whole thing when he spotted the ornate sarcophagus at the far end of the huge chamber. He thought that perhaps the old Sith might have been buried with his lightsaber. He hoped. At the very least, the sarcophagus would provide some measure of cover while he came up with a plan to get himself out of this mess.

He sprinted unprotected across the rubble-strewn floor toward the sarcophagus, the vornskyrs in hot pursuit. He leapt off a stone bench and cleared the top of the coffin, landing hard on the other side. As he landed, he used the Force to rip off the heavy stone lid and launch it at the charging monsters. It smashed into the lead vornskyr, breaking off a large section of its snout. Though toothless, the creature's tail more than made up for any other physical shortcomings.

The Dark Lord peeked into the now open sarcophagus and saw exactly what he'd been hoping to; a cylindrical object was clutched in the leather-gloved hands of the Sith Master. He only hoped the power cell was still good as he plucked the lightsaber from the dead man's grip and thumbed the activator.

To his relief, crimson fire erupted from the hilt, casting an eerie glow on the vornskyrs, who had just caught up with Arisin. They charged the coffin, knocking it over and spilling the moldering Sith onto floor of the tomb. Arisin rolled out of the way before the sarcophagus could crush him. Just as he reoriented himself, a barbed tail sailed through the air in an attempt to skewer him. Now rearmed, he had the advantage. The odor of burning rock was instant and gratifying. The sharp tip of the tail fell to the ground, shattering into a thousand pieces. Faster than a Human eye can perceive, Arisin sprinted forward and relieved the monster of all four feet before lopping off its enormous head, which exploded dramatically as it hit the ground, shards of rock spraying everywhere. The rest of the body simply crumbled.

The second vornskyr, unaffected by the death of its partner, lunged at Arisin, stone teeth bared. Arisin plunged the blade up to the hilt into the beast's mouth and out the back of its head. But short of melting a perfectly round hole though the stone, he did no real damage.

He was knocked aside by a huge paw, smashing into the overturned coffin. The vornskyr, lightsaber still implanted in its head, came at him again.

Arisin shoved with all the Force he could muster. Though the creature was immune to the Force, the lightsaber wasn't. It sliced the creature neatly in half along the length of its spine. As with the first beast, this one crumbled into dust and, for the first time since entering the tomb, all was quiet. Perhaps, he thought, he wouldn't tell Master Sidious about this one.

Arisin wasted no time and immediately began searching the tomb for a holocron. He guessed correctly that it would be within the sarcophagus, which now sat tilted on its side. Its inhabitant lay sprawled awkwardly on the floor, its gloved hand still clutching an invisible lightsaber.

"What secrets are you hiding, old man?" Arisin asked the corpse.

"What kind of secrets are you searching for?"

Arisin instinctively brought the saber to bear on the new voice. Before him stood a dark robed figure in heavy battle armor, presumably the Sith Lord interred within the tomb.

"And you would be Lord—?" asked Arisin.

The figure cocked his head slightly to the side, his face covered by a mask strangely reminiscent of the Emperor's Royal Guard.

"I am Darth Revan."


	3. Dark Teachings

**Chapter 3: Dark Teachings**

"When do you believe Lord Arisin will return, your Majesty?" The Emperor's Grand Vizier, Sate Pestage, sat in the Royal Office.

"I am unsure, my friend," the Emperor said, staring out into Coruscant's busy mid-day traffic. "Korriban has much knowledge to offer and Lord Arisin has much to learn."

"And what of Miss Jade and Princess Leia? They have been gone for nearly two weeks, I believe." The old man sounded genuinely concerned, something that amused Palpatine.

"Do not worry for them." He chuckled. "They are more than capable of looking after themselves. As it happens, they had a few…_troubles_, but are on their way back to Coruscant as we speak." Despite their setbacks, he had all the confidence in the galaxy that his Hands would not fail him.

"Your Majesty, I do not mean to question your methods, but what if the occasion arises in the future where you will need the assistance of the Black Sun organization?"

"I have taken that into account, and am unconcerned," Palpatine replied, still facing his grand panoramic window. "Though headless," he continued, "the organization will not die after the vigos are removed. They are resilient; I doubt we could ever eradicate them completely. For the time being, however, they will be set back considerably. They will certainly think twice before aiding a terrorist organization again." He turned his attention towards his vizier. "Now, Pestage," he said, giving the other man his full attention. "What news do you bring me today?"

"Well, Your Majesty," began the older man, "There have been several riots protesting the destruction of Naboo. Now, while most have been relatively peaceful, I'm afraid protesting on Corellia has been quite violent." He looked at his datapad for details. The Corellians were known for being hot-blooded. "It looks like twelve sentients confirmed dead; seven protesters, four stormtroopers, and one civilian who was unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"I take it these riots have been quelled?" The Emperor abhorred protesters.

"As we speak, Your Highness." He consulted his datapad again. "It would seem the Imperial Miners' Guild has already _tripled_ their usual profits for this early in the quarter."

"Excellent!" said the Emperor happily.

"Oh!" Pestage suddenly remembered something. "And the Maw Installation is preparing to release their RPD to the military. They'll be patrolling our bases all over the galaxy within weeks."

Palpatine wracked his brain but came up empty. "I'm sorry, my friend. _RPD_?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Your Highness. It's the Raptor Patrol Droid. Here," he punched something into his datapad and instantly, a holovid appeared above the Emperor's desk. Palpatine watched the footage with great interest.

"This is the security footage of the RPD which attacked Lord Arisin in the Installation," Pestage explained. "As you can plainly see, it held up well against even a warrior of his caliber."

Palpatine smiled. "Yes, very nice," he said, still watching as the Raptor fired its shock net. He watched as Arisin expertly managed to free himself by using the droid's own clawed foot to cleave through the net and gain the upper hand. His apprentice ripped a wall panel free and used it to shield himself from the droid's stunners until he advanced close enough to retrieve his lost lightsaber and relieve the machine of its legs. "Brilliant," he whispered to himself.

"Your Majesty, if one of these droids took this long for a _Sith_ to defeat, imagine two; five; an entire _patrol_."

"Absolutely," said the Emperor. "I am most pleased with their performance. I want them patrolling our garrisons the moment they are available."

"Alright, Your Highness. And how many—"

"Five thousand units for the Palace and an initial ten million for our garrisons. They're to be fully equipped. I want no expense spared," demanded the Emperor. "If they do well, the order will be tripled."

"At once, Your Highness," Pestage said. He rose from his seat. "If you'll not be needing me further…"

"No," said the Emperor. "You are dismissed."

"Good day to you, sir." Pestage bowed and left without another word.

The moment the sound of Pestage's fluttering robes faded into the distance, the Emperor keyed a comm code into his desk unit.

"_Prison sector three-two-two-seven; Captain Ciris._"

"Captain Ciris, I wish for the prisoner in cell seven-one-three brought before me immediately," said the Emperor.

"_At once, Your Majesty."_

Ten minutes later, there came a sound at the door.

"Enter," called Palpatine.

The Rebel prisoner Kyle Katarn, flanked by two menacing Royal Guards, stepped into the office, his hands shackled behind his back.

"You're dismissed," Palpatine said and the guards slipped out silently. "You know," he said to Katarn. "The last two bound prisoners brought before me were freed immediately." He paused a moment. "You, however…I don't believe I am that trusting."

"Then you're smarter than you look," said Katarn. Though starved and sleep deprived, he carried himself well. A little too well. Palpatine wondered how much Kenobi had been able to teach Katarn during their short time together.

With the slightest twitch of a finger, the Emperor sent a spasm of pain through Katarn's body so intense that it very nearly brought the rebel would-be Jedi to his knees. Kyle gritted his teeth against the agony, which ended just as abruptly as it began. He felt nauseous.

"That's rather brave language from someone bound and at the mercy of one capable of causing instant and lasting pain far beyond what you have just experienced."

Breathless, Kyle glared at the Emperor with unbridled fury.

"Good," whispered Palpatine. Katarn's hatred fueled him. "Do you know why you have been brought here? By all rights, I should execute you where you stand." The Emperor stared hard into the young man.

"Hmm, I'd have to say your own sick, sadistic pleasures," answered Katarn defiantly, his voice strained.

"You call bringing order to chaos 'sick'? Or peace to war 'sadistic'?" countered Palpatine.

"No, I call the oppression of a galaxy 'sick' and the deaths of trillions over the course of _two_ wars all for _your_ personal gain 'sadistic'." Kyle showed no fear. He was as good as dead anyhow. "You're an evil man, Palpatine. If you can even still be called a man."

The Emperor took the verbal abuse without so much as blinking. When he finally spoke, it was slow and deliberate. "You really ought not to speak of things you know nothing about, my young _Jedi_. But," his tone softened, "if you feel that you know so much about me and my motives, by all means, explain them to me."

Katarn looked confused. "Excuse me?"

"I believe I speak Galactic Basic fluently and that your hearing is practically perfect so I will not repeat myself," he said coldly.

"You want me to tell you about your own corrupt rise to power?"

The Emperor smiled. "I do." He then motioned for Katarn to sit, which the Rebel did somewhat uncomfortably, forced to lean forward with his hands still bound behind him.

Kyle cleared his throat. "You were a senator from Naboo. You befriended the young and trusting queen the moment you saw your opportunity to bring doubt to the office of Supreme Chancellor. You managed to convince the Senate that Valorum was weak and needed to be replaced by a stronger Chancellor. You got yourself nominated and won, though rumors had it that you rigged the election. Have I left anything out so far?"

"Only the deeper meaning of things, but please, continue." The Emperor steepled his bony white fingers as he listened.

"The Republic was crumbling," Katarn continued, still unsure as to why he was playing the Emperor's game. "You sparked a war in order to raise an army, which strengthened it over the short term. Then, you convinced the Senate that you alone could see the Republic through the war that you yourself had started. They amended the Constitution in order to keep you in office long after your term was up." He paused. "Anything untrue there?"

The Emperor looked pleased and shook his head. "Not a word. Continue."

"You waited for just the right moment then betrayed the Jedi. You declared them 'enemies of the Republic' and had them all hunted down and destroyed. You declared yourself Emperor, blah, blah, blah, and now, twenty-five years later, here we are."

"Here we are," Palpatine agreed. "So you know the facts, but what was my motivation?" he asked.

"Power," Katarn said simply.

"You know nothing of power," the Emperor said with disgust. "My vie for power wasn't some spur of the moment decision or some vain ambition to hold the galaxy within my grasp. My plan was a thousand years in the making. It was the culmination of a millennium of plotting and planning." Palpatine was irked by Katarn's naïveté.

He glared at the young man, who sat in silence. "Power is not ruling a galaxy. True power is achieved when you have isolated your weakness and removed it. I think that you confuse power with strength.

"I'm going to tell you a story. It involves a creature born to the Force itself. The Jedi called him the Chosen One; the one being prophesized to bring balance to the Force."

Katarn rolled his eyes and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Is this going somewhere? I didn't know I was brought here to listen to fairy tales."

"Oh, it was no fairy tale. Of that, I can assure you. The Chosen One was very real. The galaxy knew him as Anakin Skywalker."

_Skywalker?_ thought Katarn. _As in, Luke Skywalker?_

"You knew him," continued Palpatine, "as Darth Vader."

"Vader was a Jedi prophecy?" asked Katarn, unable to hide his confusion.

"Anakin Skywalker was a Jedi Knight, yes," Palpatine confirmed. "He was, in fact, on the Jedi Council itself at the end of the Order's life."

"As fascinating as all this is," Katarn said, "what does this have to do with strength versus power?"

"Absolutely everything," Palpatine said. "Vader was born to the Force. His strength was virtually limitless. Yet he was weak. He wielded no real _power_. Power is given to you by people. No one respected him. People feared him."

"And you're saying all your power comes from the overwhelming love the galaxy has for you?" asked Katarn smugly.

"To hold power, you must _command_ it. He commanded fear. Do not misunderstand; fear can secure you power, but fear coupled with respect _ensures_ it. Vader killed needlessly, irresponsibly. People hated him for it." Palpatine shook his head. "I am not a loved man, but I am greatly _respected_. There is a fine line between fear and respect. To wield true power, you must learn to balance that line perfectly."

"Is this conversation going somewhere or are we just gonna keep talking semantics?"

The Emperor smiled. "You said that my motivation all along has been power. That is not an untrue statement. However, what I truly longed for was immortality. And, I believe I have achieved just that."

"Everything you've done, all the people who've died, all of it was so that no one would forget you?" Katarn was stunned

"Once again," the Emperor said, "you have masterfully taken the facts and drawn from them a completely erroneous conclusion." He stood and turned away from Kyle, gazing out at his city. "I strove to change the galaxy, to tear away its crumbling foundations and build it anew. I wished to unite the galaxy into a single, powerful, unwavering entity that would stand ten thousand years in peace."

"The Republic you destroyed lasted longer than that," snapped Katarn. His eyes burned at the back of Palpatine's head.

"In name only, my young Rebel," the Emperor countered. "Since its formation, the Republic experienced multiple civil wars. Every few decades, a new power would rise and a small portion of the Republic would be lost. Some of these wars lasted for _centuries_." He looked over his shoulder at Katarn. "The Republic never truly united the galaxy. Not before me. I took a dying government and breathed new life into it, a vitality it hadn't seen in millennia. I built our military up to a strength never before seen in this galaxy. I ended _two_ civil wars and brought us through stronger than when we entered them. For the first time in decades, the galaxy is at peace, united. And _I_ did it." He turned to Katarn, glaring. "It is you and your kind who would see this body fall into chaos, the _galaxy_ fall into chaos!" He pounded a fist hard on his desk. "You should be on your knees thanking me for all that I have done for this galaxy and begging me not to kill you right here for your treasonous attempts to disrupt the peace of the Empire!"

"I'll kneel before you the day your rotting corpse is on a slab," spat Katarn.

Before he could utter a sound, Kyle found himself flying upwards out of his seat straight into the ceiling, smashing his back hard against a light fixture. As a spasm of pain radiated out from the impact site, he felt an invisible force pinning him where he was, rendering him unable to move. His hands were still bound behind him and his shoulders, twisted in awkward positions, felt as though they were about to tear out of their sockets.

The Emperor simply looked up at him, his severe features awash with anger. "How long did you think I would put up with your insults?" he asked. "I do not know how patient you believed me to be, but now I suspect you have your answer." He stepped around to the front of his desk. Katarn, struggled in vain against the durasteel grip of the Force. "You cannot fight me and hope to win."

"As long as I'm fighting you, I'm a thorn in your side. I don't need to win. I just need to know that I've irritated you, made your life just a little bit harder." Kyle managed a thin smile through his pain.

The Emperor laughed. "Do not think so highly of yourself. You are _hardly_ a thorn in my side. You barely qualify as an insect beneath my boot heel." Palpatine allowed Katarn to fall to the floor. "As you can see, you are far from a threat to me." He smiled maliciously as he watched Kyle struggle to right himself.

"What exactly do you want with me?" asked Katarn, breathless from his struggle to get to his feet.

Palpatine thought a moment. "I haven't decided yet," he said finally. "However, I promised Grand Admiral Piett that I would execute you and I am a man of my word."

Katarn was instantly shot across the room, smashing into the far wall. Before he could fall to the ground, his body was speared with the Emperor's Dark lightning. Too stunned to utter a sound, Kyle Katarn fell to the carpet dead.

* * *

><p>Mara sat in the <em>Jade Saber<em>'s pilot seat, her right arm in a makeshift sling. A bacta patch was taped to her shoulder. Leia sat in the co-pilot seat, smirking.

"Oh, shut up," said Mara for what seemed like the hundredth time.

"I'm just glad you're okay," said Leia, stifling a laugh.

"I said shut up!" yelled Mara, though she found herself trying not to smirk as well. "Remind me never to go on vacation with you," she added.

"You just have bad luck with animals, that's all." Leia held nothing back now. Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

"You call those things _animals_?" Mara asked. "Those things were monsters!"

"Oh, c'mon. That wampa only had one arm!" Leia said, wiping her eyes. "And that thing on Falucia was just a bug," she added, breaking into another fit of laughter.

Mara gave Leia a shocked look. "A bug? Did you see the size of its _teeth_? That thing had to be at least five meters tall!"

"Okay," conceded Leia. "So it was a _big_ bug."

"I really wish Imperial Intelligence has let us know about the giant sharp-toothed bugs," steamed Mara.

"Oh, would you stop complaining about the karking bug!" Leia patted Mara on the shoulder, causing her to wince in pain. "It was the _wampa_ that got you!"

"Yes, I _know_ that, Princess." Mara wasn't laughing anymore. "You know, I would think you'd be a little more upset than me about our lack of intel, seeing as how _you_ were the one the bug almost ate. The wampa wasn't trying to eat _me_. I just stumbled into its den."

"Look at it this way; after that thing, the vigos were nothing," said Leia brightly. The end of their mission was in sight and it put her in a good mood.

Mara scoffed. "Yeah, let's just hope Breyac doesn't have an army of Cthons. Every vigo so far had some kind of nightmarish beings guarding them, why not him?"

"Maybe he'll have a pet rancor. Wouldn't be the first one I've come across," Leia added positively.

Mara glared. "You really need to shut up now," she said, the levity quickly draining out of her voice. Then glancing over at the instrument panel, she said, "Strap in, we're almost there."

Ten minutes later, they were soaring through Coruscant's atmosphere toward the Industrial district. Cloud cover was thick; only the tallest buildings poked through. Lightning flashed below them. This area of the planet was prone to spontaneous thunderstorms. As they lowered below the cloud line, rain spattered heavily against the windscreen.

"Ah, Coruscant in spring," said Leia unenthusiastically. "So Breyac operates this close to the Government district? Brave."

"Well," said Mara, "in his defense, he still thinks the Empire is turning a blind eye to Black Sun. As far as he knows, he's still safe. The Emperor has used Black Sun many times before," she explained. "Until now, he's chosen to look the other way. But the Imperial Security Bureau discovered that Black Sun was hired to help the Rebels sabotage all those ships. Palpatine rewards allegiance well but punishes treachery with extreme prejudice."

"Yeah," said Leia solemnly. "I know."

"Oh," said Mara, suddenly realizing her mistake. "You're Alderaanian. I forgot. I'm sorry," she said sincerely.

"It's okay," Leia said. "What's done is done. Bad things happen in war."

The rest of the short flight was in silence. Leia stared blankly out the window as Mara expertly navigated the traffic lanes. Before too long, she landed the ship at a hovering pad that, to Leia, seemed somewhat unimportant.

"This is it?" she asked.

"No," said Mara, removing her arm from the sling and testing her shoulder. "Now we go on foot."

Without delay, they exited the ship. Kay and Drey went to follow Leia, but she shook her head. "Not this time, guys. We don't know what's in there. Stay with the ship and make sure no one comes sniffing around. We'll comm you when the mission is done."

Kay bowed his head, "As you wish, Lady Vader."

Drey likewise bowed. "By your command."

Mara sealed up the _Saber_ and the two women headed out in search of their hydra's last head.

Colloquially this sector of the city was referred to as The Works. The ancient buildings in this zone were among the oldest and least populated on the planet. There was almost no maintenance to speak of and anyone who lived here lived in the shadows. The only buildings still used were the scattered functional factories that produced transparisteel, durasteel, and half a dozen other metals used to make everything from datapads to starships.

The air smelled bad. Really bad. Fumes from the hundreds of different ores and minerals being smelted were belched from dozens of three hundred meter tall smoke stacks. The thick black smoke powdered everything with a layer of soot, which served to drink in what little light filtered through the smoke and deepen the shadows. Air scrubbers were continuously flying over the sector, ensuring that none of the toxic gases mixed with the rest of the atmosphere and poisoned the planet.

Most of the sector was flat, a massive plain of factory roofs thirty kilometers in every direction, save for the odd smoke stack jutting up into the sky. Leia's eye, however, was instantly drawn to a building that stood out from the rest. A true Wookiee among Ewoks, it stood easily a kilometer higher than anything in The Works. She decided it was definitely _not_ a factory and that it looked like just the sort of place that a Black Sun vigo might make his home.

Mara caught Leia staring at the building off in the distance and grinned. She had been thoroughly surprised by the princess' performance on this mission. She had to admit to herself that maybe having another Hand around might not be such a bad idea.

"You're right, Princess," she said, nodding her head in the building's direction. "That's the old LiMerge Power building. They went out of business about a hundred years ago. It was empty until Black Sun took it over. Something about their old HQ being destroyed back when Xizor was in charge." She gave Leia a wry smile.

"Yeah," Leia said innocently. "I think I remember something about that." She raised an eyebrow and returned Mara's smile. "Thermal detonator in the basement, wasn't it?"

"You tell me."

Leia laughed. "That building was an eyesore anyway. Prince Xizor always had to have the biggest and best of everything."

"Which included you, if I remember correctly," added Mara. As they talked, they made their way into the lower levels. They'd need to go down and sneak their way _up_ through the building. Breyac would probably be on the top floors, so they had a while before they got there.

"I came at a hefty price," Leia said. "And a knee to the little prince."

Mara made a pained face. "I'll bet that hurt."

"Not for long. He was vaporized right along with his private skyhook. He'd been trying to discredit Vader in the eyes of the Emperor. My father didn't take rivalry very well."

Mara shook her head. "You don't have to tell me that. Vader hated me. He tried to kill me during the Shelkonwa incident because he thought I was after you—"

"You were on Shelkonwa?" asked Leia surprised.

"Yeah. I was there to execute the governor for treason. Vader was there for you, obviously." Mara shrugged. "He tried to have me killed a couple of times. Indirectly, of course. It comes with the job."

"But why didn't the Emperor do anything about it?"

Mara scoffed. "Because if I had allowed myself to get killed, I wouldn't've been much of an Emperor's Hand, would I? It amused the Emperor to see Vader acting so childish so he allowed it."

"So did you know my father well?" Leia asked casually. She wanted to know more about the man who was Anakin Skywalker but she didn't want to sound too desperate for information.

Mara thought about her answer before she responded. "I don't think anyone really knew Darth Vader. I mean, I'd seen him since I was a little girl, worked with him since I was a teenager. He even helped the Emperor train me, though not out of the goodness of his metal heart. All that time, I never really knew anything about him," she said. "In fact, it wasn't even until your brother was identified as Vader's son that I was able to research and find out his real name. I still can't believe he was Anakin Skywalker."

"It came as a bit of a shock to me, too," Leia said sourly. She kept hearing about Anakin Skywalker the hero, but all she'd ever known was Vader.

Mara blushed slightly. "Right," she said. "Sorry. I remember hearing about Anakin Skywalker when I was a kid, though always in hushed tones. They made him sound like the savior of the Clone Wars. The Hero Without Fear, they called him."

"Excuse me?" Leia stopped mid-step. She had of course heard of he famous Anakin Skywalker growing up. She'd heard that he was a hero of the Republic. Her father had told her that Anakin died during the Emperor's Purge. She wondered vaguely now if he ever knew who Vader really was. Probably. _I guess Luke wasn't the only one being lied to his whole life._

They had made their way to the base of the building and Mara was leading them to what looked like a small maintenance access tunnel grate. She pulled something off her belt that she used to slice the grate lock. After a few seconds, the grate slid open.

"That's what the galaxy called him," Mara said as she crawled into the tunnel. She waited for Leia to follow, then continued, lighting a glow rod. "During the Wars, I guess he and Kenobi were known to do some pretty impossible things." Her voice echoed in the close confines of the tunnel. Cables were strung along the roof of the tunnel like snakes. The smell was very mechanical, metallic. Every few dozen meters there was a readout screen. Between the screens on the ceiling were more grates, leading to more side tunnels.

"So I've heard," said Leia.

Mara shrugged in the artificial yellow light from the glow rod. "Everyone just assumed he died in the Purge. The Emperor had declared the Jedi enemies of the Republic and those who refused to come peacefully were killed. He didn't seem the type to go quietly, so it makes sense that everyone just figured their Hero had been killed by the Empire."

"So no one ever wondered where Vader came from?" asked Leia. "I mean, the Emperor suddenly has this big guy in black armor following him around, carrying a lightsaber, choking people with the Force, and no one asks who he is?"

"Well," Mara started, "everyone knew he carried a lightsaber and that he had the Force. And they were pretty certain he was human, or at least used to be. I guess people just assumed he was a former Jedi who had joined the Empire. I'm sure some history buffs recognized 'Darth' as a Sith title, but no one ever really seemed to realize what it meant. At least not that I can remember."

"You know," said Leia, who was getting a little tired of her face full of Mara's backside, "I didn't realize how smooth the transition was from Republic to Empire. When I was a little girl, I always imagined some dramatic, violent takeover ending with some overly elaborate coronation ceremony for Palpatine, self-proclaimed ruler of the galaxy."

Mara shook her head. "He was actually voted into the position."

"Really?" Leia had never heard that part before. Her father had always filled her with such hatred for the man. He made it seem like he burst in one day and destroyed the Republic, claiming the galaxy as his own.

"Yeah. He'd been Chancellor for nearly thirteen years. He had complete control of the Republic. His appointment to the position of Emperor never actually boosted his power much." They stopped at a nondescript section of tunnel. Mara removed one of the ceiling grates and climbed up into the intersecting tunnel. The tunnel wall was lined with hand and footholds like a ladder. Now they would have to climb. She clipped her glow rod to her belt and waited until Leia had started climbing behind her before she continued.

"When he announced the formation of the Empire, the change was purely in name only. The Republic had already become an Empire thanks to his machinations." Mara used the Force to keep her muscles fresh. Their climb would take a while. "But when he announced the change, he allowed the Senate to nominate its own Imperial candidates and put it to a vote. He won by a landslide."

"Huh."

"Hmm?"

"I guess it's true what they say," mused Leia.

Mara chuckled. "And what's that, Princess?"

Leia smiled. "You learn something new every day."

"Just keep climbing, Princess," Mara laughed.

* * *

><p>"I'm sorry, but you're who?" asked Arisin. Before him stood the spirit of a Sith Lord in full combat armor, complete with battle scarred full-face helmet. The Sith Lord raised his hands and removed it, revealing a surprisingly young human.<p>

"I am called Revan," he said. "I was once a Jedi Knight for the Republic. I led the Jedi forces to victory in the Mandalorian War. When I lived, the Sith were many. A great academy was located on the other side of these very mountains. The Jedi were in a civil war. The Republic was in shambles."

Arisin studied Revan's face. It was pale, rough with stubble. His head was close shaven. A scar snaked its way down his left cheek. To Arisin, he looked more like a smuggler or a pirate than a powerful Sith Lord.

"It has been a great while since this tomb has seen a visitor. Tell me the state of the galaxy," Revan demanded.

"I thought you all were able to, you know, _observe_," said Arisin, confused.

"No," said Revan. "We are anchored to very specific places, namely this planet and the Realm beyond. A scant few of us have managed to inhabit more than one location, but it's rare."

Arisin didn't question the explanation. "Okay, what is it you want to know?"

"It has been, by my estimation, almost four thousand years since my death," Revan said. "At the time of my death, the Jedi were all but extinct. I have learned that they have rebuilt since then, only to face extinction again three thousand years later. Then a thousand years ago, they reorganized even stronger than before. That is the extent of my knowledge. It has been sixty years since I have come across new information. My knowledge is somewhat out dated."

Arisin saw this as an opportunity. "In exchange for your holocron, I will gladly update you on the condition of the galaxy."

Revan seemed to ponder this a moment before answering. "That is a fair deal. You have already proven yourself worthy of the mantle 'Darth'."

Arisin bowed his head slightly. "Well," he began, "very little happened in the last sixty years until about three decades ago. That was when my master, Lord Sidious, was elected Supreme Chancellor of the Republic."

Revan nodded. "Yes, Sidious. I know of him. A very powerful Lord. I felt his power when he was here all those years ago. It is rumored that he is the _Sith'ari_."

"Sith'ari?" asked Arisin.

"The Chosen One of the Sith. Said to be the most powerful Sith Lord the Order has ever seen," explained Revan.

Arisin nodded in agreement. "Yes, he's very powerful. He maneuvered himself into the highest office right under the Jedi's noses. They had no idea of who he really was until it was too late to do anything but die." He grinned. "He destroyed the Order with one swift stroke."

"Well that is certainly very impressive," acknowledged Revan. "For a single man to do what an army of millions before him could not is certainly worthy of recognition. The Jedi, however, seem very adept at surviving. How sure is he that they are all gone?"

"While it's true many did survive his Purge, Darth Vader personally tracked down and destroyed all remaining Jedi," said Arisin. "All save two. But they have both since died. The Jedi are extinct."

Revan smiled. "Good, good. The Jedi were blind. I was once a part of their order. I saw first hand how narrow-minded they were, afraid to use the power that the Force granted them. I knew my destiny was not to serve the Force as a Jedi, but to command it. As a Sith." He spoke like a general, his tone powerful, commanding your attention.

Darth Arisin raised his eyebrows in question. "Lord Revan, you mentioned the _Sith'ari_. I wonder if you might expand on exactly what that is."

"Have you heard of the Jedi prophecy of the Chosen One?" asked Revan. "One born to the Force itself who is said to bring about Balance."

Arisin smirked. "As a matter of fact, I have. You are speaking to his son."

"What?" The Sith spirit narrowed his eyes in confusion.

"I am Luke Skywalker, son of Darth Vader; formerly Anakin Skywalker; formerly a Knight of the Jedi Order and the Chosen One of the prophecy."

Revan looked at Arisin, an eyebrow raised in surprise. "Well that certainly wasn't the answer I was expecting." He allowed an impressed smile to form on his lips. "However, as I was saying; the _Sith'ari_ is the equivalent of the Jedi Chosen One. It had even been rumored that they were one and the same. It is unknown who it was, is, or will be. It is unknown whether it is an individual or if one will rise every few generations. As with most prophecy, it is vague at best and open to a myriad of interpretations. It was thought that Lord Bane was the _Sith'ari_. Or at least the most recent one."

"And you think my master may be your _Sith'ari_?" Arisin asked.

"I don't presume to be an expert on ancient Sith philosophy. According to legend, as most of these prophecies begin, the _Sith'ari_ is a powerful Sith Lord, the most powerful the Order will ever see. This Lord would defeat the Jedi and become the greatest Sith of all time. Both Bane and Sidious appear to match the description, though Sidious seems to win by the smallest margin."

"That sounds right," said Arisin. "There's really not much to tell after that. He reformed the Republic into the Empire and has just ended a nearly decade-long civil war. Was there anything else you wanted to know?" he asked.

"No," said Revan firmly. "I think we've had enough stories for today. You have been very informative, thank you."

Lord Arisin bowed. "Of course, Lord Revan. Now about your holocron."

Revan gave him a smile. "You are welcome to access my holocron at your leisure." With a hand gesture, a section of the stone floor beside the overturned sarcophagus slid open, revealing a stairway leading down into the rock. "My vault," Revan explained.

"Are there any stipulations as to the use of your holocron?" Arisin asked.

Revan tilted his head slightly to one side. "I'm not sure I understand."

Arisin explained Lord Malloc's rule that he may not leave the tomb and how he was forced to return day after day.

"Malloc is a kreffing fool," Revan said upon hearing this. "He had all the wisdom of a half-dead Gamorrean morrt. As long as you return it before your departure from this planet, you may take the holocron for as long as you like. The idea is to learn. You cannot learn if you are restricted."

"Thank you, Master Revan." Arisin bowed his head in respect. "I hope to learn much from my time here." He stepped over to the opening of the vault and descended the stairs. When he returned, holocron in hand, he saw that everything had been righted. The mess had been cleaned, the sarcophagus once again sat on its dais. It looked as though nothing had stirred in a thousand years. Even the stone vornskyrs had been repaired and were once again at their stations, guarding the entrance. Revan saw the look of confusion on the other Lord's face.

"A single-use security system wouldn't be overly effective when guarding something as valuable as this, would it?" He smiled. "Do not fear, you have free reign of this place, now."

Arisin was relieved. He did not enjoy the prospect of having to fight those monsters again. "Again, I thank you, Lord Revan."

"Not at all." He paused a moment. "If I might ask, what exactly is it that you seek here? I know it is not just advancement in the Force. You have a specific purpose for coming to this planet. I sense the drive within you."

Arisin started slowly. "I'm looking for anything, really. I've been Sith for only a few months. I am trying to learn their history, their power, their knowledge. I'm looking for anything to help me to reach my full potential." He began to walk towards the entrance but was stopped by Revan.

"That is why _you_ came here. But why were you _sent_ here?"

The Sith Lord slowly turned around. "My master wanted me to learn everything that I could." He paused. "And he seeks immortality. His master learned the secret, but never taught him. He feels that if we work together, we can discover the power."

"Immortality is a tricky thing, Lord Arisin. I advise you to be careful in your journey. Booby traps and hssiss aren't the only dangers of this place. The knowledge contained in these tombs can consume you if you aren't prepared." He bowed to Arisin and replaced his scarred helmet. "Mind what I have told you. It may just save you." He raised his hood and slowly dissolved into nothing and Arisin was alone, as though he had dreamed the whole thing.

He glanced down at the holocron clutched in his hand; it was a multi-faceted black crystal pyramid, no larger than his fist. Ancient symbols of power were scrolled down each face. In its core smoldered a faint red light like a hot ember. He very much wanted to return to his ship to study it further. Taking one last look around the empty tomb, Arisin began the trek back.

For the next several hours, he pored over the contents of the holocron, engrossed in the ancient wisdom contained within.

"_I am Darth Revan, Dark Lord of the Sith," _said a small grainy hologram of the Sith Lord.

"_All those who use the infinite power of the Dark Side are inevitably bound to serve it. This is the most basic philosophy of the Sith. The Dark Side relinquishes power only to those who crave it. To wield it, you must seek power over all with no hesitation._

"_The Force _will_ change you, transform you. This is feared by some. The Jedi train to resist this change. But those who do not embrace the transformation, those who serve the Light, will forever be limited in what they accomplish._

"_Through embracing the transformation comes true power. Compromise is not an option. Mercy, compassion, and loyalty are obstacles that prevent you from claiming what is rightfully yours._

"_Once you have harnessed the Dark Side, the next challenge is maintaining your hold on it. The Dark Side inherently manifests rivalry and strife. This is its greatest strength. Through this, the Dark Side is cleansed and refined, the weak falling to the strong. The strong, however, must be wary, for even the weak can defeat them with enough ambition and numbers. With this regard, a Master who trains more than one apprentice is a fool. For in time, the apprentices will unite to overthrow the Master. It is inevitable. That is why each Master should take but one student._

"_This, too, is why there can be only one Dark Lord. To function, the Sith must be ruled by a single leader, one who embodies the Dark Side itself. And at the first sign of weakness, this Dark Lord must be removed, replaced. The strong rule, the weak serve; such is the way of the Dark Side. This is how it must be._

"_My time here has ended,"_ said the holographic figure. _"Take what I have taught you and use it well."_ The holocron deactivated, leaving Arisin in complete silence.

For days, Arisin learned from the holocron. It was packed with detailed instructions on meditation, advanced healing trances, and how to sap strength from the inherent Force of your surroundings. He learned new techniques that allowed him to maximize his power without draining himself of energy.

On his fourth day with the holocron, he came across a set of ancient hyperspace coordinates. _The Unknown Planet_. The holocron had spoken of a great weapon, built by a long extinct race, which was said to be in the same system as this Unknown Planet. He couldn't imagine what else the coordinates would be for. He felt a tug in the Force urging him to investigate these coordinates further.

An hour later, after having returned the holocron to Lord Revan's tomb, he pointed the shuttle skyward and blasted away from Korriban. As the ship exited the planet's gravity well, Arisin punched the coordinates from the holocron into the navicomputer. The destination was an area deep in the Unknown Regions, a violent and mostly uncharted region of space along the furthest reaches of the galactic plane. With all the course adjusting he would have to do, the flight would take at least a week. That gave him plenty of time to work on all of the new techniques he'd just learned. He initiated the hyperdrive and settled back to meditate.

* * *

><p>"Wake up, Katarn." The voice sounded faint to Kyle, as if it was coming to him through a long tunnel. He opened his eyes and was instantly blinded by the painfully harsh light. As his vision cleared, he began to make out basic shapes. He could tell that he was lying on his back, staring up at a large dark blur. The blur spoke to him in the voice he'd heard moments before.<p>

"Your vision will return in a few moments," it said. "I'm told it is something akin to being revived from carbonite hibernation."

As sensations began to return to him one by one, Kyle realized that he was bound at the wrists and ankles, with a strap across his bare chest. His vision continued to clear and he was able to start making out the finer details of the room around him. He seemed to be in a medical lab of some kind. He looked back at the dark blur. His eyes suddenly focused. The Emperor was staring down at him.

"What-what happened?" he asked groggily. "Where am I?"

"I killed you," said the Emperor. "Then I transferred your consciousness into a clone body." The Emperor smiled down at him wickedly. "You should know that there is no limit to how many times I can do this to you, nor do you possess the power to resist me. Your first execution was quick and painless, but I promise you, if you refuse to cooperate, they will rapidly become more and more—unpleasant. Unless, that is, you decide to join me."

Kyle wasn't sure he heard correctly. "A—clone? Wh-what do you mean?" His head was still foggy.

"Perhaps you should direct your attention to your left," said the Emperor, pointing with a bony finger.

Kyle turned his head slowly, his muscles aching. What he saw nearly made him scream. Lying on an identical slab just a meter away was _him_. The body was wearing the clothes he himself had worn during his meeting with the Emperor. Only now, they were heavily charred in the chest. The body's arms and face were likewise burned extensively. It was him. And it was definitely dead.

"You mean to tell me that that corpse is me?" he asked, turning back to face the Emperor. "And that this body is a clone body?"

"I mean to tell you nothing," Palpatine said sharply. "That is precisely what I _have _told you. As a body dies, it is possible, through the Force, to capture its living consciousness and transfer it to another body. In your case, a clone of your original body had already been prepared."

"So my mind, my memories, all of them are original? I'm not just—a copy?"

"Your physical body is new but your mind is very much the original," the Emperor confirmed. "This clone never reached consciousness."

"And you are going to keep killing me and cloning me until I join you?" Kyle clarified.

"You told Lord Arisin that you would die for your cause," answered the Emperor. "I would see how many times you choose to die before it is no longer your cause. Consider it a psychological experiment."

"Yeah," said Katarn, turning his gaze to the ceiling. "Well, Your Highness, it's gonna take a few more times before I start calling your ugly mug 'Master'." Kyle maintained his defiance.

Palpatine simply smiled. "So be it. Your second execution has been scheduled for tomorrow. Grand Admiral Piett will be present. We'll be sure to make it a good one; this one will be _official_." He left the room, leaving Kyle to contemplate his impending second death.

* * *

><p>Arisin brought the shuttle out of hyperspace. In all, the trip had taken just over six Standard days, time he had spent meditating on the wise words of Darth Revan. But now he had arrived at this strange planet, hoping to find answers to questions he hadn't even thought to ask.<p>

The planet was average sized, dominated by massive oceans. What little land there was appeared to be blanketed with dense jungles. Gravity was seven percent above standard, so there wouldn't be much spring in his step. According to his sensors, the planet was littered with literally hundreds—maybe even _thousands_—of crashed starships. The downed vessels ranged in size from snubfighters and shuttles to huge capital ships and everything in between. From what he could tell, the oldest ships predated the Empire by tens of thousands of years. Even the youngest ships appeared to be millennia old. It was as if a gigantic magnet had just pulled them down to the surface.

When he had first entered the system, he immediately sense a significant dark aura surrounding the world. He reached out further, feeling a high concentration of Dark Side energy at a point on the southern coast of the largest continent. He decided to begin his search there.

He orbited the planet several times, surveying it visually and with various sensor scans. Almost ninety percent of the planet was covered in water. The ship's sensors didn't detect any sentient life. _That will simplify things_. Curiously, he _was_ able to locate a clearly artificial structure. It was small, but located in the center of the Dark Side concentration he felt. _That settles it, then._

He brought the ship out of orbit. Soon, he was navigating through a thick layer of clouds. Abruptly, he broke through the cover and saw the surface up close. The planet was beautiful, unspoiled by civilization. It wasn't long, however, before the first crashed ship came into view. It was a medium-sized _Hammerhead_-class Republic cruiser half-buried in the floor of a shallow lagoon. The model was old, at least a couple thousand years retired by the rise of the Empire. Its age was confirmed when Arisin ran its serial number through the Empire's ship registry, which included an archive of all vessels serving the Old Republic going back nearly seven thousand years. This particular vessel was called the _Heart of Taris_ and supposedly vanished while on a scouting mission four thousand two hundred and seven years ago. Several even larger hulks, which seemed to predate even the _Hammerhead_ could be seen far off in the distance, sticking up out of the water at odd angles. Both land and sea were peppered with the debris from the thousands of fallen starships. As he neared his destination, however, the wreckage began to change noticeably.

He brought the ship to a stationary hover about a hundred meters above one particularly large piece of the strange new debris. Whatever it came from had been made from a dark metal that the scanners could not identify. It also, Arisin noticed, gave off a strange sensation in the Force. It had a presence like that of a living being. It was completely saturated with the Dark Side, like it had the ability to actually store the Force within its metallic structure. Sensors placed its age at well over thirty thousand standard years, making it older than the Old Republic by many thousands of years. He made a mental note to investigate the strange debris further during his trip.

He accelerated again towards the lone structure on the planet and the center of the Dark nexus that he felt. The structure soon came into view. It appeared to be a simply constructed stone temple, perhaps fifty or sixty meters tall and easily as old as the oldest wreckage he'd surveyed elsewhere on the planet. The temple was in bad shape; its spires had long since crumbled, leaving jagged stumps and piles of stone blocks strewn about the grass at its base. Its entrance had been heavily caved in. But that damage was not as old as the rest, nor did it appear to be the result of natural erosion. Curiously, it looked like impact damage, though from what, Arisin had no idea; he saw no evidence from the air of what might have hit it. The temple sat in a large grassy clearing, something that struck Arisin as an odd thing to find in the middle of a thick jungle. It was as if the dense vegetation didn't want to encroach any closer to the structure than it had to. He continued to sense a strong dark aura surrounding the site.

He set the shuttle down in front of the temple's weathered steps, which were flanked on either side by a large obelisk. Though toppled and broken now, they appeared to have stood at least ten meters tall when intact. He lowered the boarding ramp from the cockpit and set the ship on standby mode should he need to leave in a hurry. Even before he had exited the cockpit into the passenger area, the smells of the jungle invaded his nostrils. It was the sickly sweet smell of damp soil and a thousand species of vegetation rotting together in the humid wet heat, not unlike the jungles of Yavin IV. Something disturbed him as he started down the ramp to the planet's surface; the jungle was completely silent. There were no animals screeching, no insects buzzing, not even a breeze to speak of. Everything was dead still. Was the animal life of this world, like the heavier vegetation, hesitant to come too close to this beacon of Dark Side energy?

He reached out with the Force as he marched across the wide grassy clearing to the temple, searching for any sign of life in the vicinity. He felt nothing but the never-ending jungle. _Odd_. Satisfied that he was alone and in no danger of being attacked by some horrific jungle monster, he focused his attention on the temple before him. As he ascended the stairs, he could see the destruction of the entrance in greater detail. It appeared as though his previous hypothesis had been correct; this damage was definitely not natural weathering. It had been collapsed on purpose. He wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but one thing was for certain; the debris would have to be moved before he could attempt to enter the ancient temple. He immediately set to work moving the stones.

Using the Force, he cast aside the larger hunks of rock. He didn't care about removing it all, just enough to allow him access to whatever might be inside. As he cleared the last piece of masonry out of the way, a glint of metal caught his eye. He dropped down to his knees and began sifting through the rubble by hand, carefully revealing, to his surprise, a very old corpse. The body, its flesh long since decayed off its dirty brown bones, was clutching two lightsabers.

He loosened the skeleton's grip and slid the lightsabers out. They were identical and appeared to connect at their base, forming a double-bladed weapon. Arisin had seen a similar double-bladed design before, at the hip of Lord Kun on Korriban. He thumbed one of the lightsabers' activators. A crimson blade erupted from the emitter before sputtering out a moment later. He tried the other one with the same result. But he'd just made a very interesting find. This man had been a Sith.

Arisin inspected what was left of the body. The bones were severely crushed. If he hadn't died in the cave in, he certainly didn't survive for long afterward. The species appeared humanoid, but not quite Human. It had small, sharp teeth and slight cranial protuberances. Some bits of mummified bluish skin were still attached to the body's skull and appeared to resemble lekku, leading Arisin to conclude that this had once been a Twi'lek male. His tattered clothing was nondescript and wouldn't help him place the being's time period. Arisin checked the Twi'lek's pockets. Anything organic would be long gone, but he discovered a personal communicator and a few ancient Old Republic credits. He left the credits but pocketed the comm. He should be able to plug it into the shuttle's comm unit and listen to its last few messages if its memory core hadn't corroded.

Satisfied that he'd learned all he could from the body, he clipped the Twi'lek's lightsabers to his belt and set off into the temple. He wasn't surprised to see that none of the interior glow lamps were functioning. He hadn't detected any kind of power source in the area when he'd done a sensor sweep. He took a small glow rod from his belt and switched it on. He had expected to see spider webs, rodent nests, _something_ to show that time had progressed, but there was nothing. The only indicator of the temple's age was a thick layer of dust that coated the stone floor.

_Wait_, he though as something caught his eye.

He knelt down and brought the glow rod close to the ground. In the dust, he could make out footprints. Lots of them. In fact, if he had to guess, he'd say they were left over from a confrontation of some kind, which certainly could explain the caved in entrance and the dead Twi'lek outside. Amazed that they had been preserved for all this time, he examined them further, an image forming in his head. He saw that there were definitely two separate sets of prints. The boot treads were distinct from one another. One of the prints was very large; its owner had to have been two meters tall at least, a real monster of a man. Strangely, it looked as though the larger man was being forced _backward_, toward the entrance, as if he had been _losing_ the duel. The Twi'lek hadn't appeared to be as large as this man had been, so Arisin surmised that he had actually been winning at this point. Though he obviously had the superior lightsaber skills, the tide had clearly turned at some point as the larger man ultimately walked away victorious and the Twi'lek had ended up dead.

He pushed further into the temple and was disappointed to see the extent of the internal damage. Based on the pattern of cracks that radiated out from the ruined entryway throughout the entire temple interior, it looked to have collapsed around the same time as the front entrance. He knew he'd never be able to clear out all the rubble without causing the temple to become dangerously unstable, likely collapsing completely. Besides, anything of value would have been destroyed in the initial collapse. And that was assuming the temple still contained anything of value anyway. He was clearly not the first to tread these ancient halls.

He turned back and left the crumbling structure. Marching back up into the shuttle, he was disappointed but not ready to leave this planet behind just yet. The Force still told him he was meant to be there. At the very least, he could see if he could identify the mystery Sith. He took the communicator from his pocket and inspected it closely. It seemed in fairly good shape given its extreme age. It wasn't a design he was familiar with, but the shuttle had a universal port that accepted almost any type of input. Cleaning off the dirt and grime as best he could, he slid the comm into the port and powered up the unit.

Immediately the speakers crackled to life.

"_This is the personal log of Lord Kas'im of the Brotherhood of Darkness. I am recording this in the unlikely event that I am killed on this most important mission for the Brotherhood._

"_Even now as I speak, Lord Kaan gathers our forces on Ruusan, awaiting Jedi Master Hoth and his Army of Light. Lord Kaan has personally assigned me to this mission due to my unique relationship with the subject._

"_My mission is to hunt down a rogue Sith by the name of Bane and convince him to join the Brotherhood against the Jedi. If he refuses, I am to kill him."_

Kas'im gave a short sigh. _"On a personal note, Lord Bane is the finest student I have ever instructed. I sincerely hope he does not force me to kill him. He is very powerful, a great warrior, and an asset to the Sith ranks. He is perhaps one of the greatest swordsmen in the galaxy. I have taught him myself. It is my old master's blade that he wields. I truly do not desire to strike down its owner for a second time._

"_Bane is the most powerful pupil I have ever taught, but I haven't taught him _everything_. He is stubborn and independent, but his loss would be tragic. I will kill him if I must, but I will take no pleasure in it."_

There was some slight static then another recording:

"_I have just exited hyperspace in orbit around Lehon, the Rakatan homeworld. How Lord Kaan knew Bane would be here I do not know. But he _is_ here. The _Valcyn_ appears to be landed on a beach ten kilometers from the Rakatan Temple of the Ancients. I believe he may be seeking the knowledge of Revan and the Star Force. Its wreckage litters the jungle and may still contain what he perceives as important information._

"_Whatever his motivations, they are misguided. Revan and Malak failed and the Star Forge was destroyed. Bane _must_ be made to see reason. There is an undeniable presence in the Dark Side on this world, but there is nothing to be learned here!"_ There was a sound like Kas'im pounding his fist on his instrument panel. _"I will end this transmission until I have Bane, alive or dead. Kas'im, out."_ The speakers went silent.

Arisin sat quiet a moment, going over in his head everything he'd just heard. He was making of list of new information:

_This planet is called Lehon and was the homeworld to something called the Rakata._

_That strange debris is the wreckage of something called the Star Forge, which was commanded by Darth Revan and Malak, presumably another Sith Lord._

_The dead Twi'lek was a member of the Brotherhood of Darkness, placing his death at approximately one thousand years ago._

_The dead Sith had been a teacher of and was killed by Darth Bane himself._

It was a lot to be learned in such short recordings. Arisin's next step would be to figure out what exactly he would do with this new information and decide which pieces, if any, were actually important. Lord Bane had come here seeking information. Something about this planet was important. He needed more information. After a few moments deep in thought, he decided to give something a try.

* * *

><p>"Ah, Firmus! Please, come in and be seated." Sate Pestage greeted Grand Admiral Piett and ushered him to his seat.<p>

"Thank you, Master Pestage." The Grand Admiral sat. "I trust His Majesty will be joining us soon?"

He and Pestage were alone in the execution chamber. It was a large circular room with seats arranged in a raised ring around the floor. At one end of the ring, a single seat stood higher than the rest. That was the Emperor's personal observation box. In the center of the floor was a small circular platform which would lower down into the holding cell below and raise the condemned up into the chamber. Today, Kyle Katarn was that condemned. And Grand Admiral Firmus Piett was there to watch the man who sent his crew to their deaths pay for his crimes.

The Emperor had allowed him this private audience. Only he, Palpatine, and Pestage would be present to see the Rebel die. _Good_, Piett thought bitterly. _Katarn doesn't deserve an audience. He's not worth it. He'll not die a martyr, just a traitor and a murderer._

"Firmus," the Emperor's voice sounded from beside him, breaking the silence. "I hope this brings you some measure of closure." He looked down at the seated Grand Admiral, who had worn his best whites for the occasion, every crease razor sharp. Though Palpatine seldom felt any measure of pity for anyone, Piett had lost his entire crew and his ship after the war had ended. Their deaths had meant nothing. It was truly tragic. Even Palpatine could see that.

Piett stood and bowed respectfully. "Yes, sir. I do hope so," he said. "I mentored Katarn, you know. He had a promising career ahead of him. I can't help but feel that this whole thing was personal, his being assigned to _my_ ship." He shook his head. "All those men died for nothing."

The Emperor nodded. "Justice shall be served today, Admiral. And remaining rebels will be caught. They have a great deal to pay for." He turned and ascended the steps to his seat. He took his throne and signaled the holding cell. Immediately, the center lift dipped below the floor, returning moments later with Katarn stand upon it, glaring up at the Emperor. He looked haggard and weak, his plain prison garb dirty and wrinkled.

"You wanted to see me, Your Majesty?" he called out, ever defiant.

"Kyle Katarn," the Emperor's voice projected out from his box. "You have been found guilty of treason and crimes against the Empire and its citizens. The penalty for such crimes is death. Have you anything to say before you are executed?"

Katarn scoffed. "Well, I didn't have anything prepared," he quipped. "Just make it a good one, Palpatine. You'll never get what you want from me." He turned to Piett. "Admiral, it was nothing personal. That was just the ship I was assigned to."

Piett rose from his seat. "Those were good men you murdered, Katarn." Piett said sharply. "The war was over and you killed them in an act of pure terrorism. This will not be an honorable death, Kyle, and I wish that you could experience it once for every life you ended that day." He sat down again and nodded to the Emperor, signaling that he was finished.

"Kyle Katarn," the Emperor spoke again, "For your actions and participation in the terrorist organization known as the Alliance to Restore the Republic, you will hereby be executed by way of lethal gas." He pressed a button and suddenly, Katarn was encased within a containment field.

Inside the shimmering energy field, Katarn stared up at the Emperor. There was no look of appeal on his face. No sorrow, no fear, just seething, unadulterated hatred for the old man staring down at him, who appeared to bask in it.

Kyle glared up at the Emperor. The buzzing of the containment field filled his hears. Then a low hissing sound worked its way into his ears. He glanced around for the source and found several small nozzles imbedded in the floor that were spewing a barely visible vapor that slowly wafted upwards. He began to notice a slightly metallic taste in his mouth. Then it became difficult to breath. He equated it to trying to breathe in a sauna, somewhere with high humidity and thick, wet air. Then his breathing became _painful_. Just an ache at first, then slowly worsening. Soon, each breath was agony. His lungs felt as it they were on fire.

He dropped to his knees in a spasm of pain, clutching his heaving chest. Gasping for breath, he began to make gurgling sounds until finally he started to cough. Thick, dark blood sprayed the floor. His lungs were dissolving. He coughed harder and harder, gouts of blood pouring out from his mouth. Flecks of his ruined lungs littered the floor. Collapsing now to his back, he writhed and seized with pain until finally laying still.

Piett had forced himself to watch the entire gruesome display. He owed his men that much. Never one for wishing pain on anyone, he couldn't help but feel Katarn deserved much more. However, the deed was done. The man was dead. Piett's mind could finally be at peace.

The three men sat in silence for a few moments, their gazes fixed on the bloody mess before them. The containment field was deactivated when the expanding puddle of blood reached the edges of the energy barrier and began to vaporize, adding a sick sizzle to the scene.

"Rest your mind now, Admiral," the Emperor said at last. "He is dead and your burden has been lifted."

"Yes. Thank you, Your Majesty." Piett rose and straightened his white dress jacket. "I must return to the _Manticore_." He turned to look up at Palpatine. "Thank you again, Your Majesty."

"You are most welcome, Admiral," the Emperor responded, descending from his box. "Now go, your ship needs you." He nodded his head in dismissal. Piett bowed, acknowledged Pestage, and left the execution chamber.

As soon as Piett had gone, Sate Pestage looked to the Emperor. "Do you believe he is ready to join you now, Your Highness?"

"No," said the Emperor, still staring at the bloody corpse in the middle of the floor. "Katarn is still defiant. His will is too strong to be broken so easily. I sensed it just now as I shuffled his consciousness into a fresh body."

"Easily?" Pestage wondered to himself quietly. "My goodness." He rose and left his master alone to his thoughts.

* * *

><p>Arisin was surprised at just how much the world's eerie silence was getting to him. <em>Maybe because everywhere I go, something tries to kill me<em>, he thought cynically. _I'm getting used to it._

He stood once again in front of the temple, the Sith Lord Kas'im's lightsabers clutched in his fists at his side. He closed his eyes and drew upon the Dark Side, using the abundant dark energy around him to fuel his experiment. He concentrated on the lightsabers.

Just as with the Emperor's vision back on the Death Star and later his and Leia's in her cell, disembodied sound was the first thing to manifest. He heard the unmistakable clash of lightsabers, boots scraping stone, someone breathing heavily.

Arisin felt a cool breeze brush his cheek, despite the breathless jungle around him. Slowly, the image began to work its way into the Sith Lord's mind. He opened his eyes and was no longer on Lehon. It was night. He was standing atop a large plateau of reddish stone, the apex of another temple of some kind. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he was back on Korriban. In the center of the large flat surface, two men faced each other in battle, one large, one small. Both of their chests were bare, robes thrown outside the ring. One of them was a blue-skinned Twi'lek, no doubt Kas'im. And the other, the giant, was unquestionably Darth Bane. Kas'im brandished a dual-bladed lightsaber, the same lightsaber that was now in two pieces clasped in Arisin's hands. Bane fought with a lightsaber of a design Arisin had never seen before. The hilt was curved. It looked awkward in his massive hands, but he wielded it expertly. As they sparred, Kas'im spoke to Bane.

"Excellent!" he said in the same voice Arisin had heard on the ancient comm's recordings. Kas'im had just defending himself from a particularly brutal assault from Bane.

He returned the attack in kind. Kas'im was impressed. Though Bane hadn't come particularly close to hitting him, he had forced the more experienced Kas'im to take a step backwards and really focus defend himself. Suddenly, Arisin saw Kas'im leap over Bane's head, twisting in midair to slash at the larger Sith from a new angle. Bane easily blocked both blades, ducking and rolling away as Kas'im landed. Bane jumped quickly to his feet and spun round to face the blademaster, saber at the ready. Kas'im, however, had his blades lowered; the lesson was over.

Arisin stood watching from a far corner of the makeshift arena on the temple roof. The Twi'lek's voice carried loud and clear across the night.

"That was very good, Bane." He offered his pupil a nod of respect. "I am impressed. I thought that you would be caught off guard by my last move, but you were able to predict it and defend yourself with almost perfect form." He smiled slightly in the dark, his sharp teeth gleaming in the moonlight. "You are progressing quickly."

Arisin could see Bane's shoulders heaving up and down, breathing hard. His bare torso glistened with sweat. Kas'im tossed him a towel. He, too, was sweating, though only slightly.

Bane caught his breath. "Do you have anything for me to work on for tomorrow night? New forms, sequences?"

Kas'im shook his head, a lekku sliding off his shoulder. "You have moved beyond sequences and forms, Bane," he said. "In my last pass, you flawlessly broke your attack sequence and came at me from a completely different angle."

"I did?" Bane's deep voice echoed over the rooftop. Arisin could see his posture change in surprise. "I-I didn't mean to."

"That," said Kas'im, "is what makes you so dangerous. You have surrendered yourself to the Force. You allow it to guide your blade now. You fight with your passion, your anger, your hatred. You act without thought. Your blade has become an extension of the Force, of the Dark Side."

"I still couldn't get past your defenses, though," said Bane, a note of pride in his voice nonetheless. "Your lightsaber," he said, pointing. "Do two blades give you the advantage?"

Kas'im nodded. "But not for the reason you believe."

Bane waited for an explanation.

Kas'im obliged. "You already know that the Force is the true key to victory in any confrontation. However, it is not as simple as that. Someone well-trained in lightsaber combat can defeat an opponent who is stronger in the Force. The Force allows you to predict your opponent's moves so that you may counter them with your own. However, the more options your enemy has available, the more difficult it becomes to anticipate their next move."

"So a double-bladed weapon gives you more options?" asked Bane.

"No," said Kas'im. "But, there lies the advantage. It makes you _think_ it does. In the end, the effect is the same."

Arisin saw Bane mull over this a moment. "I still don't understand, Master."

"You wield the single-bladed lightsaber well; you use it and your fellow students use it. My double-bladed weapon seems alien to you. Unfamiliar. You are unaware of its capabilities." He stopped, allowing Bane to understand.

"In combat," he continued, "your mind keeps track of each blade, doubling their options. But the two blades are connected. By knowing the location of one, you automatically know the location of the other. So you see, in practice, the double-bladed weapon is more limited than the traditional lightsaber. In the wrong hands, it is far more dangerous for the one wielding it than for their opponent. As it is so difficult to master, very few Jedi or Sith understand it, and thereby do not know how to attack or defend against it. _That_ is my advantage."

"Master, by telling me this, you've given up your advantage," Bane said.

Kas'im smiled. "I am never without an advantage."

Suddenly, Arisin was inside a large room, its stone walls were old and worn. In the middle of the floor sat a large figure. Darth Bane. He sat in contemplation, no doubt meditating on the direction in which he would take the Sith Order. Behind him, in a doorway, stood Lord Kas'im.

"Bane!" Kas'im's voice reverberated around the rock walls. "I bring an invitation from Lord Kaan."

Bane's eyes flashed with anger as he jumped to his feet, lightsaber in hand.

"How did you find me?" the massive Sith Lord bellowed.

"Lord Kaan told me you had come to this world. Once I reached orbit, it was as simple as following the _Valcyn_'s beacon," said Kas'im. "Though how Lord Kaan knew you would come here I cannot say."

"Were you sent to kill me?"

"If you will not join the Brotherhood, I am to leave your corpse on this barren and forgotten world."

"Barren? How can you say that?" Bane raged. "The Dark Side is as strong here as it ever was on Korriban. It is _here_ that we will find the power to destroy the Jedi, not in Kaan's Brotherhood!"

Kas'im ignited his blades. "It is time to end this foolish quest, Bane. The old ways have _failed_. The Jedi defeated those who followed them: Kun, Revan, they all lost! Our only hope is to find a new philosophy."

Bane seemed hopeful for a moment, as if Kas'im were saying exactly what he wanted to hear. However, as Kas'im spoke again, disappointment washed over his face.

"Kaan understands this need," said Kas'im. "That is why he founded the Brotherhood. It is the future of the Dark Side."

Bane shook his head slowly, deliberately. "Kaan is _wrong_, Kas'im. I'll not join him _or_ his Brotherhood."

Kas'im sight in what could have been deep despair. "Then your life ends here."

Arisin blinked and was instantly returned to the present. He stared up at the ruined temple. He still gripped Kas'im's lightsabers. Why had the Force shown him this? The Force was not random; there was a reason he had been shown what we saw.

He joined the two lightsabers together and clipped the resulting extra-long hilt to his belt. There was still much to be learned here. He drew a deep breath and disappeared into the jungle, searching for the strange Force-imbued wreckage and more answers.


	4. The Dark Lord

**Chapter 4: The Dark Lord**

"You know, Kay and Drey would have come in handy right about now," Leia whispered. She was regretting her choice to leave them behind at the ship. She and Mara were currently lodged in an access tunnel below Vigo Breyac's outer office, which just happened to be filled with a dozen security guards. Either the vigo knew they were coming, which was unlikely, or he was unbelievably paranoid. Though, given the circumstances, that seemed to be working out for him quite well.

"But what'd be the fun in that, Princess?" Mara whispered back. Leia couldn't tell if the other woman was being sarcastic or not. "Just gimme a minute. I'll get us out of this."

"You mean like how you got yourself out of that wampa's lair?" Leia hissed. "Yeah, great job there. I especially liked the part where _I_ killed it and saved you!"

Mara scoffed. "Fine, Princess. If you have any bright ideas, I'd love to hear them."

Leia thought a moment. "How well can you use the Force?" she asked.

"Well enough," said Mara defensively. "I can move things, detect if someone's lying; you know, simple stuff. And the Emperor's taught me to communicate with him from anywhere in the galaxy." She saw Leia's face sag a little. "Hey, I've been trained as an assassin, Princess, not a Jedi. My Force training has been secondary. But it's never failed me before." Mara was angry that this amateur was questioning her skills, skills she'd been honing since she was a child.

"Alright," Leia said with a smirk. She'd obviously struck a chord. She glanced around the room through the access grate set into the wall at floor level. She studied the room. It was a simple outer office, meant to hold clients until they could be seen by the vigo. It contained a leather couch and a potted plant of some kind. Boring.

The guards, on the other hand, were very interesting. They were posted around the perimeter of the room facing toward the center of floor. Leia imagined anyone waiting in that room would be very nervous sharing space with the likes of them. She studied them up and down and determined that they were likely mercenaries. All of them were armed and armored differently. But then she noticed a small crimson emblem that was painted on each of their shoulder guards. It was in the shape of a circle encased in two opposing crescents. That was the insignia of the Blood Moon pirate gang. These were dangerous people. Any ideas involving taking them on in open battle were immediately thrown away.

She located the most armed of the pirates; the two guarding the doorway into Breyac's office were definitely the better equipped of the bunch. Her eyes swept down their bodies, identifying as many weapons as she could, until they fell upon a single concussion grenade on each of their belts. The idea formed from there.

"You have something in mind, Princess? Or are we gonna wait until they all fall asleep?"

Leia ignored Mara's questions and answered with one of her own. "You see those two by the door?" she asked quietly, gesturing with her head.

"Yeah," said Mara, unsure where this was going.

"See those concussion grenades they have on their belts?" Leia asked with a smile.

"Yes, I do," Mara said, mirroring Leia's grin.

"I need you to set those off," Leia said.

Mara's grin instantly faded. "What? I'm not sure I can do that."

"Why not?" asked Leia, annoyed.

"Because I'm not so good at the precision stuff," Mara admitted. "I mean, sure, I can lift big things and I can float my lightsaber around, but I've never tried pressing a tiny button. Let alone _two_ tiny buttons at once."

"Alright," said Leia slowly. "When I tell you to, just close your eyes and picture yourself walking over to them. See your hand pressing the activator switches. The Force is just an extension of your hand, okay? Think you can manage that?"

"Why can't you do it?" asked Mara in a nervous whisper. Leia had never seen her show this kind of weakness before.

"Because after you activate the fuses, I have about seven seconds to get a grip on all the weapons in the room and make sure they aren't used in case all of the pirates aren't killed or knocked out."

"Oh." Mara gave in, "Alright, I'll give it a try."

"Trying to win loses the war," said Leia wisely. "Be confident. _Do_."

"Say, that's pretty good," Mara said sarcastically. "Where'd you pick that up?"

"The Emperor."

"Oh." Mara gave Leia an embarrassed laugh. "Okay, then. _Doing_, it is."

Mara closed her eyes and felt around with the Force. She felt the guards. Traveling down their bodies, she came across the grenades. She felt around them a bit until she located their activators. "I got 'em, Princess. Lemme know when you want them to go."

"Go ahead." Leia prepared herself. Though they were protected where they were, the blast could still impair her focus if she wasn't completely ready for it. She heard two nearly simultaneous beeps.

"Done!" Mara hissed.

Instantly, the guards' blasters were wrenched from their grips and thrown to the center of the room. A few of them managed surprised squawks before the grenades went off.

The guards on the door were killed instantly. Although concussion grenades were meant to be largely non-lethal at distances of several meters or more, anyone holding a grenade when it blows is hit with a shockwave that instantly liquefies their internal organs. Everyone else is merely dazed or knocked unconscious. They're great for incapacitating a large group of people all in close proximity to one another.

Leia waited until she heard the last body fall before she raised her head from its sheltered position to glance out the grate. Not one guard was left standing. She removed the grate and extracted herself from the duct.

"_What's going on out there?"_ yelled a nervous voice over the comm unit in the wall beside the now unguarded door. _"Garyn, answer me!"_ he yelled again. _"Blasted pirates!"_

Leia lent Mara a hand out of their hiding spot. The Emperor's Hand surveyed the scene. "Not bad, Princess. Not bad at all."

"Thanks," said Leia, a little impressed herself.

"_Hello?"_ came the voice again. _"Is there anyone out there who can answer me?"_

Mara stepped over the bodies of the two dead guards and pressed the comm button. "Vigo Breyac?"

"_Who is this? Where is that gorram pirate Garyn and the rest of the Blood Moons? I heard an explosion!"_

"Vigo, I don't suppose you'd like to let us in?" Mara turned to Leia and shrugged. It was worth a shot.

"_Absolutely not!"_ The vigo was angry now. _"I demand to know to whom I am speaking!"_

"They call me Emperor's Hand, Vigo."

The other end of the comm was silent for a moment.

"Vigo?" asked Leia.

"_Who is that, now?"_ asked the vigo, suddenly finding his voice.

"Enough of this poodoo. Vigo, we're coming in!" Mara ignited her magenta lightsaber and plunged it into the door's locking mechanism. At once, the door slid open. She was about to step through when Leia grabbed her and pulled her backwards nearly off her feet.

"Princess! What in Stars' End…?"

"Wait!" Leia hissed as a steady stream of blaster fire erupted through the doorway where Mara's head had just been. It splattered against the far wall, digging a deep furrow into the durasteel plating. A moment later, two more streams began blasting through the doorway.

"Fierfek!" Mara swore. "He must have an automated system."

"E-Web?" asked Leia.

Mara shook her head. "This kreffing kath hound will have the best. Probably ceiling mounted turrets, top of the line targeting systems, and shield plating. Frak!"

"Any way we can just deflect it long enough to get inside?" Leia asked nodding her head at Mara's still lit lightsaber blade.

Mara shook her head again. "Not a chance. I tried that once with things like this and nearly broke my wrist." She flicked a thumb at the wall, which was dripping molten metal onto the carpet, setting it aflame. "Besides, there's too much and it's too fast. We're karked, Princess."

Leia studied the room and its unconscious occupants, hoping to find something useful.

"I've got an idea," she said slowly. "You said the turrets probably have advanced targeting systems, so that would mean they track movement, correct?"

"That's the general idea, yeah. Standard high quality security package."

"What if we used the bodies to distract them? Then one of us can take them out when they've stopped shooting through the doorway."

Mara smiled. "I like the way you think, Princess. They won't be fooled by the dead ones, though. They detect body heat, respiration, and the tiny electrical impulses in a living brain."

Leia shrugged. "So we use one of the live ones. Will it work?"

"Absolutely," said Mara. "Would you like to float or shoot?"

Leia bent down and retrieved the highly illegal disruptor rifle off of a fallen guard. "I feel like shooting something," she said with a smirk.

Mara deactivated her lightsaber and clipped it back on her belt. "Shooting it is, then. Get ready." Reaching an arm out in front of her, she summoned three of the bodies from their places on the floor. One of them groaned lightly before he was thrust into the stream of blaster fire and silenced permanently. Soon, all three bodies were through the door, taking the blaster bolts with them. They heard the fire intensify in the other room and Leia moved into position.

Jumping into the empty doorway, she quickly traced a stream of fire back to its source, took aim, and fired. The disruptor bolt shot out of the barrel like a bright blue missile of pure energy. The turret exploded like a bomb, showering the floor with red-hot shards of metal. Very few things could stand up to more than one shot from a disruptor rifle.

Within four seconds, Leia had taken out the remaining two turrets and all was quiet. She motioned for Mara to follow her and entered the doorway. They stepped into the hallway leading from the outer office to the vigo's personal office. It was littered with debris, both mechanical and organic. The bodies, which Mara dropped to the floor, were charred beyond recognition. None of them was still in one piece. Smoke and the smell of burnt flesh made Leia's eyes water as they proceeded unhindered down the wide hallway.

At the end of the hallway was a closed door bearing the thorny insignia of Black Sun. Beyond that sealed door sat their quarry. Finally, their mission was coming to an end.

The two women looked at one another, each mirroring the other's expression; it was one of relief and determination. Leia spoke first. She nodded at the door. "You take the left, I'll take the right, we'll meet in the middle," she said, drawing her lightsaber and igniting its violet blade.

Mara likewise snapped open her saber and the two went to work. They plunged the glowing blades into the top of the door and worked in opposite directions, cutting through the material like it was blue butter. The thick metal squealed in protest, but the high-energy blades made short work of it. Within half a minute, they had carved a rough two meter by two meter circle. That half minute was plenty of time for the vigo to potentially arm himself. They would need to exercise caution when entering the room.

Once the circle had been completed, the two Emperor's Hands deactivated their sabers and stepped back as if to examine their handiwork. Leia clipped her lightsaber back on her belt, extended a hand and, with a well-aimed Force blast, knocked out the plug. It toppled into the vigo's office, strands of gooey, molten durasteel still clinging to the hewn edges.

As it crashed to the floor, Leia glimpsed a flash of movement behind the office's huge desk. She was surprised to find that it was nowhere near as garishly decorated as she had expected. Several simple chairs were set up in a semi-circle facing the large, wooden desk, upon which sat piles of flimsiplast sheets, datacards, and a few open datapads. In each corner of the room sat a modest bronzium sculpture, each one resting on a marble pedestal. Several tasteful holoart pieces hung on the walls. Though extravagant for an ordinary citizen, this art collection hardly betrayed the vigo's immense personal wealth. He wasn't flashy, which meant he didn't concern himself with what others thought of him. His reputation was built on his actions, not the pretty things he surrounded himself with. In Leia's mind, Breyac just grew a bit more dangerous. But where _was_ he?

"Oh, Vigo!" Leia called out, almost singsong.

She looked over at Mara, who merely shrugged.

"Vigo!" she called again, this time adding a bit of Force to her voice.

Very slowly, a man stood from behind the desk and faced them with fear in his eyes. His skin was a deep red and in stark contrast to his dark, spiked blue-black hair. He was a Zeltron. And a tall one, too, Leia noted. Almost two meters. Though for all his height, his build was slight.

"What—what do you want?" he asked, his voice shaking. He was trying to hide his fear and failing utterly.

Mara stepped forward, lightsaber still clutched in her hand but deactivated. "Oh, Vigo Breyac," she said as if she were addressing a child. "You are having a very bad day. And depending on your spiritual beliefs, it's potentially about to get much, _much_ worse."

Breyac's eyes widened. "You—you're going to kill me?"

"Unless you'd like to be a dear and just topple over dead and save us the trouble, yes, we're going to kill you."

"It's really nothing personal, Vigo," Leia added. "Well, for us, anyhow."

Despite his fear, Breyac's face adopted a puzzled expression. "What do you mean?"

"ISB discovered that the Rebels hired Black Sun's services to help several agents gain access to Imperial ships," Mara said, letting some anger creep into her voice. "Those ships were destroyed and Imperial lives were lost, Vigo." Mara loved this part. The look on a being's face when they realize the worst mistake they ever made has come back to haunt them was priceless. "Your life is now forfeit by order of the Emperor."

"We didn't know they were Rebels!" he cried. "Our clients remain anonymous!"

"Oh, you knew," Leia said. "Black Sun's spy network and intelligence rivals the Empire's. You knew."

"And if you didn't," added Mara, "you knew that you were giving them exclusive access to Imperial warships. Just the fact that you have the ability to do that makes you a very serious threat."

Breyac stiffened. "Black Sun has a reputation," he said, pride overwhelming the fear he was feeling. "If we refuse a client, word gets out. People start thinking we are incapable."

"Well, congratulations, Vigo. You have upheld your reputation," said Mara. "Unfortunately, after today, Black Sun won't exist to keep it up."

Breyac's eyes widened in shock. "One of my subordinate vigos will—"

He trailed off as Leia slowly shook her head.

"Your council has been wiped out, Breyac," she said. "You are our last head."

"What?" asked the vigo, confused.

"Enough talk!" yelled Mara. Without warning, she activated her lightsaber, locked the blade, and hurled it like a javelin at the vigo. To hers and Leia's surprise, the lightsaber passed right through the vigo and plunged into the wall behind him.

Breyac looked down at his chest where the weapon had passed through. Then slowly, he looked up, a wicked smile plastered across his crimson face. "Good-bye, ladies." Suddenly, he flickered once and disappeared.

"A hologram!" cried Leia.

"Fierfek!" Mara swore loudly. "He was playing us the whole time! It was all an act to buy him time to escape."

Leia nodded in agreement. "There must be an escape hatch beneath the desk."

Mara shook her head in frustration. "He could be anywhere by now."

"I don't suppose the Emperor will just let him go?" offered Leia half-heartedly.

Mara just shot her a sour look. "This mission's not over, Princess."

Leia gave a defeated sigh. "Yeah, I know."

* * *

><p>The Dark Side was thick here, much more so than the dense jungle that covered the planet's land mass.<p>

Lehon was a world untouched by civilization. Its only sign that sentient life had once been present was a single, crumbling temple tens of thousands of years old. It was amazing that the builders of that decaying temple had created a galaxy-spanning empire that rose and fell before the founding of the Republic and that they, despite their achievements, had been forgotten by the galaxy and by history. They had traveled the stars when the rest of the galaxy was still puttering around their own solar systems. They used the Force thousands of years before the first Jedi would hear the whisperings of power in his ear.

How had such an important and advanced race been simply erased from time itself? Even their homeworld seemed to have forgotten them, and, in turn, been forgotten.

Once it had been known, though. One need only look as far as the thousands of crashed ships imbedded in its surface. But even the youngest ships were centuries old. Whatever had brought them all down had disappeared, ceased functioning. So why hadn't it been colonized now that it was safe? And where had all the animal life gone? Vast oceans that should have spawned fish crash empty against equally empty shorelines. Thick jungles that should be abuzz with the sounds of insects and primates sit quiet, the only sounds coming from the breeze as it sweeps through the foliage. Where was it all?

It was blatantly clear that Lehon was capable of supporting life. Vegetation covered every square kilometer of land. A planet such as this devoid of animal life was an impossibility. It was…_wrong_. Something had to be keeping life from developing. Or had eradicated it. Lightsaber in hand, hacking his way through the eerie lifeless jungle, Darth Arisin, the newest Dark Lord of the Sith, intended to find the answer to that question.

He'd been burning a swath through the thick plant life for nearly an hour. He was following the pull of the Dark Side the way migrating avians follow their planet's electromagnetic fields. The Dark Side called to him, willing him to follow its voice. It promised him great power. It guided his steps. And it told him that that which he sought was directly ahead.

Kyle's eyes flashed open. His vision was blurred but rapidly clearing. He found himself strapped to a table. Again. He swore silently to himself as memories came flooding back. Memories of pain, fear, and death. His own.

"Oh, good. You're awake," an old man's voice broke into Kyle's thoughts. The Emperor. "You put on quite the show. I dare say I rather enjoyed myself." There was a soft, perverse chuckle, then a dark shape entered Kyle's field of vision. "I trust your senses are returning somewhat faster than last time? The process tends to speed up with each transfer as it becomes less of a strain on the mind."

"I'm glad I was able to entertain you," Kyle said in a hoarse whisper, using his new vocal chords for the first time. "So when are you just gonna kill me for good? I have reservations for the opera next week and I'd like to know if I'm gonna be around for 'em or not." He coughed as he got used to his new lungs. Then he cringed as his recent death came bubbling back up in his mind.

Stepping fully into view, the Emperor flicked his wrist and Kyle's restraints fell away. "Oh, you shall not be permanently killed for quite some time," he assured him.

Kyle sat up and rubbed his eyes, as though he could drive the Emperor from his mind as easily as he would a bad dream. He stood awkwardly on his unused legs. The lab's floor was cold beneath his bare feet.

"I do not believe that _that _death will be delivered by me, however," the Emperor added as Kyle donned the simple tunic he'd been provided with. "You will eventually see that I am a fair man, that I am not the tyrant you see me as. One day, you _will_ call me 'Master'."

"So, what," said Kyle as he slipped on a pair of hospital slippers, "you're gonna train me in the Force? Am I to become just another of your flunkies?"

The Emperor smiled. "That would be the idea. The Force flows strongly in your veins. However, you would be much more than a mere 'flunky'," he said. "You would be one of my Hands. An agent of the Empire. An extension of my will in the galaxy. You would answer to no one but me, have the entire resources of the Empire at your disposal."

Kyle shook his head. "Thanks, but no thanks, old man. Kindly show me back to my cell while you cook up my next execution."

"Now _there's_ and interesting idea," said the Emperor with a malicious grin.

"What?" asked a confused Kyle.

The Emperor turned to walk away. "Cooking."

* * *

><p>The plan had worked perfectly. Breyac congratulated himself on his deception of the two Imperial assassins. The moment he had heard the concussion blast, he'd slipped through the escape tunnel he had hidden beneath his desk. Not even his top vigos knew of its existence. Some may have considered him paranoid, but he doubted any of them would argue that it had most certainly saved his life. The tunnel led directly to a ship via magsled, which he kept ready to fly at a moment's notice. From the ship, all he had to do was interact with the women as though he were there in the room as opposed to kilometers away in an advanced holochamber. It was delectably simple yet unquestioningly effective.<p>

He'd had a top-of-the-line holorecording system installed aboard his ship for just this sort of occasion. It was so sophisticated that, until one attempted physical interaction with the hologram, it was almost impossible to tell the difference between it and the real thing. The audio system installed in various parts of the office could perfectly replicate the voice of the speaker, matching tone, reverberation, and echo.

The trickiest part of the charade had been feigning surprise and fear. In reality, he was annoyed that they had broken into his stronghold and amused that they thought they could get anywhere near him even after having gotten past his security. If he had appeared too confident, the women would have known something was wrong and his ruse would be over. But, he managed to distract them long enough for the ship to break Coruscant's gravity well. His ship had leapt into hyperspace just seconds after the assassins had witnessed his vanishing act.

Now safely in hyperspace, he allowed himself to mull over the recent events. He was sitting in his posh cabin aboard his personal ship, the _Silver Bullet_. The _Bullet_ was a relatively antiquated H-Type Nubian Staryacht. Though an older model, it was heavily modified with all the most advanced technology and served its purpose well.

Dart-shaped and covered in a silver mirror finish, the ship was a popular model in the Royal House of Naboo in decades past. When he had seen one of the vessels during a visit to that planet, he immediately contacted Nubian Star Drives, Incorporated and ordered the _Bullet._

How had these women infiltrated his operation so easily? _These weren't just any Imperial agents_, he though to himself, running his fingers through his spiked black hair. A few simple calls had confirmed that they spoke the truth about his other vigos. They were all dead. Black Sun was crippled. Somehow, these two individuals had brought the greatest criminal organization in the galaxy to its knees. _What had they called themselves?_ He remembered. _Emperor's Hand_. Both had carried lightsabers, the weapon of the Jedi. _No_, he thought. _The Jedi are all dead. They must be…something else._ But what?

Breyac had a secret safe house on a Mid Rim world called Ruusan. It was the site of some huge battle between the Jedi and their enemies, the Sith. The planet had remained uninhabited since the battle a thousand years ago. The galaxy had simply forgotten it. It wasn't even on any hyperspace maps. He could hide out there, safe and sound, while he considered his next move.

* * *

><p>Arisin's lightsaber was extinguished even before the tree crashed to the ground. Clipping it back to his belt, he was finally able to step into the clearing. The Force was strong here. At the center of the clearing sat a large chunk of the debris imbedded deep into the ground. It sang with the Dark Side. This is what had called him all this way. Beckoned to him. The Star Forge.<p>

According to Darth Revan's holocron, the Star Forge had been constructed millennia before the founding of the Republic. The Builders, the Rakatans, powered the Forge with the Force itself. With the Dark Side. It had been an enormous factory, able to produce hundreds of ships daily. Unfortunately, the Dark Side was so strong around the Star Forge that it began to corrupt the Builders, who were too weak willed to withstand the prolonged exposure. Eventually, the so-called Infinite Empire disappeared and the Star Forge was forgotten.

The immense structure had remained lost but intact until four thousand years prior to the end of the Republic. Jedi Knights Revan and Malak, having heard rumors of this space station, sought it as a way to supply the Republic with weapons and starships for the war with the invading Mandalorians. During their search, the two highly revered Jedi turned to the Dark Side. Revan and his disciple each took the title "Darth" and joined the ranks of the Sith Lords.

Though the Mandalorian War had been won without the aide of the Star Forge, the two Sith did not give up their quest to locate it. When at last they found it, they used it to wage war on the Republic, which, at the urging of the Jedi Council, had branded them war criminals. They used the Star Forge to build a Sith fleet the likes of which the Republic had never seen.

The Forge had been positioned over Lehon's sun, drawing raw elements directly from the star itself. There it sat, turning out countless ships for the Sith fleet until it was discovered by the Republic and destroyed. The battle was epic and much of the Republic fleet was lost, but in the end, the Star Forge had been obliterated, much of the debris finding its way to Lehon, the closest planet. Though destroyed, the Forge still held incredible power. If one knew how to use it.

Revan's holocron had taught Arisin techniques that allowed him to draw upon the Force energy of an outside source. Typically, it was utilized to drain the Force from another living being, but he saw no reason why it couldn't be applied to objects imbued with the Force as well.

Lord Arisin approached the wreckage with caution. It was big; perhaps seven meters of it stuck out of the ground. There was no telling how much lay buried beneath the surface. Eons had eroded the impact crater into a level clearing thirty meters wide. He removed his leather gloves and pressed his bare hands to the dark metal. Despite the chill of the night, the metal was quite warm. The moment he came into physical contact with the strange metal, he felt a surge of energy enter his body. It was similar to the power boost he got on Korriban, only much stronger. He closed his eyes and concentrated, slowly draining its power, willing it to pass into him. He could feel the power of the Star Forge coursing through his veins. He felt the Force draining from the debris as he felt his own swell.

The feeling was indescribable. It was as if he was getting new life breathed into him. It was incredible. His eyes still closed, he took a deep breath and inhaled his new power.

When he awoke from his deep trance, it was nearing dawn. Though the darkness of the night still lingered, pale fingers of sunlight were slowly creeping up the horizon. He didn't remember blacking out. The last thing he could recall was a feeling of absolute power, invincibility, as though he held the entire universe in the palm of his hand. He still had his hands pressed against the debris; his fingers had amazingly left deep gouges in the metal with no apparent damage to himself. He inspected his hands as he put his gloves back on. It was then that he noticed something else he didn't remember.

Amazingly, he had constructed a new lightsaber. The device hung from his hip where it normally did, but it wasn't the same one he had carried the past year.

Without thinking, he unclipped it and thumbed the activator. A shining crimson blade erupted from the emitter, casting an eerie red glow around the clearing. It hummed with great power. And the Dark Side. He could sense the weapon's presence in the Force. He probed it further with his mind. Yes, it was unmistakable. He saw that he had used elements of his old saber and incorporated pieces from the Star Forge into the design and construction of the new one. He had obviously installed the crystal that he had forged on Korriban. Those two elements combined gave the lightsaber a powerful physical presence in the Force.

He didn't recognize the hilt's design. Its core was a basic cylinder, but strange prongs were affixed to either side of the emitter and to the semi-spherical end cap. It was extremely light in his hand, but he felt more than knew that it was very strong. It was attuned to him through the Force, constructed to be wielded only by him.

And while he felt incredible Force energy coming from the weapon in his hand, the piece of the Star Forge in front of him felt as dead to the Force as a glass of water, nothing more than cold, twisted metal. The technique had worked. He had absorbed every last drop of Force power the wreckage had to offer.

There were other sources of power in the area, though. He could feel them calling to him as this one had, offering him their own Force. His physical energies replenished, he set off in search of more power.

Trudging through the jungle, Arisin hacked a narrow path to the next piece of Star Forge debris. The thick foliage sizzled as his new blade sliced through the succulent leaves and stalks. The new weapon felt good in his hands, as if it belonged there. Even more than before, it felt as though it was an extension of his being, of his very will. Its hum was music to his ears. It was a hum of victory, of accomplishment. A hum of _power_. He smiled and gripped the blade tighter, swinging it effortlessly through a dense patch of ferns. His only true regret was that it would never know the honor of meeting another blade in true combat. It seemed a pity that such a beautiful and powerful weapon should go its whole life without the honor of defeating a foe on equal terms.

_Perhaps_, Arisin thought to himself, _there is some surviving Jedi Knight out there, just waiting to strike at the Emperor_. Though the chances were slim, the thought cheered him up some.

Before too long, he reached a clearing nearly identical to the one before, albeit a bit smaller. Through the trees, he could make out the massive hunk of space debris imbedded into the ground and the cleared area around it. One notable difference between this clearing and the last, Arisin noticed as he stepped into the rough circle, was the blue-skinned Twi'lek Sith Lord Kas'im standing in the center, arms folded and waiting for him.

* * *

><p>For three weeks, Palpatine had been training under the tutelage of Darth Plagueis. Since that fateful night, he had made astounding progress. Plagueis hadn't told him such, but the boy had a feeling the Sith Master was quite impressed. It seemed he excelled at <em>everything<em>.

His driving force was his deep-seeded hatred of the Jedi. He strove to train to be the greatest of the Sith Lords so that one day, he may march through the Jedi Temple and wipe them out to their last. But Master Plagueis had admonished him for such thoughts.

"Though your determination is admirable," the Muun droned, "your plans are foolhardy. The Jedi will not be defeated by brute force," he explained. "For millennia, the Sith have been trying, and by and large, _failing_, to destroy them with mindless violence alone.

"The true key to victory is not the power of the Force alone, but the also power of _influence_. However, it is a painstakingly slow process and you must have patience," Plagueis admitted. "In order to achieve true mastery of the Force and wield _ultimate_ power, you must begin by gaining power over yourself; then another; then a group; an order; a world; a species; a _group_ of species…finally," he said, "the _Galaxy itself!_"

Palpatine had been awed by his new master's wise words. He knew he had the patience he'd need to achieve his goal. As deep as his hatred ran, as much as he longed to see them all annihilated, he knew he could wait until the time was right, whenever that may be, if it guaranteed his success. It was just too big and too long awaited a plan to ruin just because he was impatient.

"I can do it, Master," he said confidently.

"Yes," said Plagueis, matching his tone, "I believe you can."

The Emperor drifted back into the Now. Since taking on young Skywalker as his apprentice, he found himself reliving his _own_ training more and more. Perhaps it was because he saw so much of himself reflected in Lord Arisin. Despite having claimed to be a Jedi Knight, once presented with all the facts, Arisin had come to the same conclusions about the Jedi that he himself had as a youth.

The Emperor's thoughts were interrupted by a soft metallic tapping at his office door. Puzzled that he was unable sense who was behind it, he raised an eyebrow as he unlocked it with the push of a button. "Enter," he boomed.

The large door slid open with a slight hiss, revealing a very nervous-looking golden droid and his squat, wheeled counterpart.

"Ah," the Emperor said upon recognizing them. "See-Threepio and Artoo Deetoo. Come inside."

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Threepio said politely, offering the Emperor a stiff nod. His servos whirred softly as he shuffled to the desk, Artoo rolling silently behind him.

"What do you want?" the Emperor asked pointedly.

Artoo whistled something harsh.

Threepio's eyes flashed and he threw his arms up in surprise. "Artoo Deetoo!" he yelled. "You mind your manners! This is the _Emperor_!" A tarnished silver foot collided against the little droid's side with a dull clang. He turned back to the Emperor, somehow looking apologetic despite the frozen expression of his faceplate. "I'm _so_ sorry, Your Eminence! Please forgive him. He's just an astromech, after all. He doesn't know any better." He turned back to the droid, "Though he _should_," he added with another kick.

Palpatine had to chuckle at the ridiculous pair. "Worry not, my golden friend," he said, looking at Artoo through half squinted eyes. "He saved my life many years ago. For that, I will always be grateful." He looked back up at Threepio. "What was it that you wanted?" the Emperor asked again.

"Oh!" Threepio's eyes flashed a little brighter. "I almost forgot! I—" He was interrupted by a flurry of beeps and whistles. Annoyed, Threepio continued. "_We_ were wondering when Mistress Leia will be returning to the Palace. Artoo is concerned. I informed him that she is more than capable of protecting herself, of course, but…well, he worries."

Palpatine nodded. He'd never seen such devotion in a droid before. "I have just this morning received word from her partner," he assured them. "Her mission has hit an obstacle and will require her to be gone longer than anticipated."

"Oh, dear!" Threepio exclaimed. "I do hope it's nothing _serious_!"

The Emperor smiled. "I am told that your mistress is quite well."

Artoo beeped something and Palpatine put on his nicest smile despite his loathing. That infernal droid had been a nuisance for over three decades.

"If that is all…," he said.

"Oh, of course, Your Majesty," Threepio said. "We'll be on our way. Come along, Artoo." He turned and started back out of the office.

"Actually," the Emperor stopped him. "I'd very much like to speak with your counterpart. We have much to…catch up on. Privately."

Threepio tilted his head in confusion. "But, sir, how will you understand him? I was unaware that you were fluent in droidspeak."

"You needn't worry about that," the Emperor assured him. "I promise, he will be returned to you very shortly." He motioned politely to the still open door. Threepio nodded and, if somewhat hesitantly, shuffled out into the hall. Palpatine waited until the sound of the droid's servos had faded into the distance before sealing the office door from his desk.

He stood from his throne and stepped toward the little droid, snatching a datapad from his desk. He knelt before Artoo, no easy task for a man his age. He looked directly into the astrodroid's optical receptor.

"I understand that you have never had your memory wiped," he said. "I want to know exactly what information you have stored in that electronic brain of yours." His tone had shifted radically from polite to menacing since the protocol droid's departure.

Artoo twittled a response.

The Emperor looked down at the words scrolling across the datapad screen. "Everything," he said upon reading the question. "Everything in your databanks about _me_."

The little droid let out a slow series of bleeps.

Again, Palpatine read the words.

"'Why?'" he asked. "You must know that you are a risk to me. I must know _exactly_ what you know about me; assess just how big a risk you pose." He softened his tone and laid a pale hand on Artoo's dome. "Please, old friend. You once trusted me. Indeed, you helped to save me. I ask you to trust me again."

Artoo retorted that Palpatine had never actually needed saving and that instigating a civil war was hardly the sort of thing done by someone whom he could trust.

Palpatine's eyes narrowed in anger as they swept back and forth across the screen, reading every last word. When he had finished, he slowly looked back up at the squat droid sitting ever defiant before him.

"I," he began, his tone dangerously cold, "unlike many in this galaxy, recognize that droids have a certain level of sentience and even, in some cases, _emotions_." His tone became as hard as durasteel. "I know there are ways to inflict pain and discomfort without damaging you permanently. I assure you, it would be much easier to give me the information freely. I could dismantle you," he said, "and access your memory _that_ way. Or," he added with a slight tug at the corner of his mouth, "I could simply destroy you right here, right now. Your Mistress would be most unhappy with me if it came to that, so I'd prefer to keep you intact, but I will do what I must."

Artoo made a slow whistle, clearly thinking over his options.

"Do keep in mind that the Rebellion has been crushed," Palpatine reminded the little droid. "There are no more heroics required of you. You've nothing to gain by not cooperating."

The droid took in the Emperor's words silently before rattling off a long series of digital words.

The Emperor smiled as he read the text scrolling across the screen.

"There," he said. "I knew you could be reasonable."

* * *

><p>They were back aboard the <em>Jade Saber<em> within the hour. Leia and Mara had spent the entire journey back thinking up increasingly creative and violent ways for the vigo to die. So far, keelhauling was top of the list.

Mara punched hyperspace coordinates into the navicomp as Leia explained the situation to the Noghri. Had they brought them along, they could have detected instantly that the office had been empty of organics. _But nooo_, Mara thought. _We had to do it ourselves._

She thumbed the intercom switch. "Hang on, Princess. I'm making the jump to light-speed."

"_All secure back here," _Leia's voice answered back.

Mara pulled back on the hyperdrive levers and felt the unmistakable sensation of the ship lurching into hyperspace. A few moments later, Leia joined her in the small cockpit.

"So what's the plan?" Leia asked as she settled down into the co-pilot's chair.

Not bothering to look over, Mara answered, "Nar Shaddaa."

Leia was unable to hide her surprise. "What? Why are we going back to _that_ rotting stinkhole?"

"Because, _Princess_," Mara finally turned to face the other woman, "there are people there who can help us track Breyac."

Leia could tell she didn't like it anymore than she did herself, but she pressed on anyway. "With the resources of the Empire at our disposal we're _still_ forced to rely on criminals? I thought the whole point of getting rid of Black Sun was so that we didn't _have_ to use their kind anymore."

Mara narrowed her eyes in obvious annoyance. "Not so long ago, you yourself were a criminal, and here the Emperor is relying on _your_ help."

Though stung by the comment, Leia's expression betrayed no emotion. "Alright," she said. "Point taken. ETA?"

Mara sighed. "Okay, I'm sorry. I'm just…frustrated." She consulted her nav screen. "We should be hitting Nar Shaddaa atmo in roughly a day and a half."

"Can't wait," Leia said sarcastically. For a few tense moments, the two women sat in awkward, screaming silence. Finally, Mara spoke.

"So, Princess," she began.

"I really wish you would stop calling me that," Leia snapped. Then quietly, "I'm not a princess anymore."

"Right," Mara said, a hint of apology in her voice. "_Leia_. I was wondering if, maybe…"

"Yes?"

Mara bit her lip. This was completely out of character of her to ask. "Well, I thought maybe we could…spar a little?" She added quickly, "It's just that the Emperor hasn't ever instructed me. He left that up to Vader, who always managed to have an excuse to get him out of it." She looked embarrassed. "I'm mostly just self-taught. Droids are okay for learning, but you need an organic partner from time to time, you know?"

Leia knew how hard that confession must've been for the other woman. She was a strong spirit, and to admit inferiority to someone she felt superior to must sting. Leia felt bad for her, but there was a measure of self-satisfaction there, too. She gave Mara her most sincere smile. "Mara," she said, "I'd love to spar with you. Just say the word."

Mara had been unsure how Leia would react. She found the former Rebel to be a bit unpredictable. Needless to say, she was pleased with the positive response. "How about now?" she suggested. "We still have a good thirty-six hours to kill."

Leia stood and stretched her arms above her head, arching her back and laying her palms flat on the ceiling. "Sounds like a plan," she said. "I'll meet you in the cargo hold in five minutes." She left Mara alone to set the automatic controls. The kaleidoscopic hyperspace tunnel outside the ship cast an eerie light that reflected off every metallic surface in the cabin. Mara stood transfixed, just watching it for a few moments, before turning to leave.

Fifteen minutes later, the ship was filled with the sounds of frantic battle. The crash of lightsabers reverberated throughout the empty hallways and corridors of the _Jade Sabre_. Mixed in were the strained grunts and groans of the two combatants.

"That was good, Jade," Leia said as she batted away a blow coming down from her left.

"Thanks," Mara said through teeth gritted against the strain of trying to overpower a particularly brutal offensive combination. The blades clashed and whirled wildly as the two danced around the mostly empty cargo hold.

"So when did—Whoa!" Leia jumped backward a step to avoid an uncomfortably close slash from Mara's magenta blade. "Nice one," she said with a smile. "As I was saying, when did the Emperor…_acquire_ you?"

"I," Mara began, pausing to beat Leia back a few steps before rolling out of the path of a surprise wrist flick that would have sent Leia's purple blade burning into her torso just below her ribcage. Luckily, she got a handy tug from the Force just in time. "I was taken from my family when I was four," she said breathlessly. "The Emperor never told me exactly how he procured me and I never asked. He and the Empire are all the family I need." She lost a few meters of ground as Leia drove her towards some shipping crates. "Even Vader was like a moody uncle or something," she said with a smirk.

Leia let out a burst of laughter that almost cost her a singed shoulder. As she recovered from the near miss, she said, "Vader? Moody? NO!"

"Oh, yeah," Mara said, smiling. "You'd _think_ he was all cubs and rainbows, but he actually had a bit of a temper."

"Mara, that's like calling the Death Star a long-distance backscratcher," Leia said with a laugh. Leia and Mara sparred for over an hour. For the first time since starting their mission, they were having fun.

Blades locked, squealing in protest, they stared each other in the eyes. Neither of them was backing down. After a moment, Leia relaxed her stance, indicating that practice was over. She extinguished her blade and clipped it back to her belt. Mara did the same.

"You're really good!" Mara said, breathing hard.

Leia wiped sweat from her brow. She was soaked. "You aren't half bad yourself. Self-taught, you said?"

Mara nodded sheepishly. "Yeah, mostly. I mean, Vader showed me the basics, but I really just built my own style off of that." She shrugged. "Didn't have much choice."

"Well it's pretty good," Leia said. "I haven't been practicing bladework long, but you seem like a natural to me. How much of that was you and how much was the Force?"

Mara thought a moment. "I'd say about fifty-fifty," she answered. "I haven't learned how to just give myself over to the Force yet."

They started to make their way out of the hold. "You know," said Leia, motioning for Mara to go first, "I don't think it's something you can really learn. I think it just sort of _happens_. The Force just takes over you in the moment. You become one with it."

Mara had stepped halfway through the door when Leia shot out an arm and grabbed her by the shoulder. "Mara," she asked, "do you know how to conjure lightning? Like the Emperor can?"

Mara took a moment before answering, looking down at the floor. "I've done it once," she said softly. She looked back up at Leia. "The Emperor hasn't formally taught me. He says that it's dangerous for someone too inexperienced. But there was one time," she shook her head, remembering what happened. "I was so angry and frustrated. I just lashed out. It took a lot out of me, burned my hands pretty good. The Emperor was angry with me about it, but I think he was a little impressed, too."

"Do you remember how you did it?" Leia pressed. "Any conscious thought at all?"

Mara was shaking her head. "No. I didn't even mean to do it. All I remember was hating him more than I've ever hated anyone in my life. It was really powerful."

Leia pulled Mara back into the cargo area. "Show me."

Mara scoffed. "Didn't you hear me? I _can't_. I don't know how."

"You did it once," Leia countered. "Try it again. There," she pointed to a large crate. "Try it on that."

"I can't!" Mara yelled. "Are you dense?"

"Please," Leia pressed. She wasn't backing down.

Mara looked as though she was going to argue, then gave a defeated sigh. "Fine," she said. "I'll try—er—I'll _do_ it."

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She held her right hand outstretched before her, her fingers splayed like claws. A tremble ran through her body, her arm began to waver. Then Leia saw it. A spark. It had leapt between Mara's fingers. It was weak, but it was there.

"You're close," she told her. "I saw a spark. Whatever you're doing, keep it up."

Mara wrinkled her brow. Sweat poured down her face, which was contorted with the extreme concentration. Her whole body shook from exertion. She flexed her hand then pointed her fingers out straight, simultaneously thrusting her arm forward through the air. A brief but bright flash of energy jumped from the tips of her fingers.

Eyes still closed, she said, "I'm not sure I can do this." Her voice was weak. She sounded exhausted. "It's taking a lot out of me."

"You can," Leia urged her. "You've almost got it. Try imagining something that makes you angry. What did it the first time?"

"The Emperor," Mara said. "I was seventeen. I failed to complete a mission, an assassination. The target got away. He called me a worthless kath pup, too weak and pathetic to live." As she recalled the event, fresh pain welled up inside of her. And with it came fresh anger.

"Use that," Leia told her, feeling a little bad for making her remember. "Remember how much that hurt you, how angry it made you. Just focus—"

"I think I got it," Mara interrupted, sounding completely confident now. She took a deep breath, concentrating on that day. She remembered the pain she felt when her master, the only father she'd ever known, told her she was unfit to live. She remembered how much she had hated him for that. She was _not_ worthless. She was _not_ weak. She was _strong_!

Mara let out an angry yell and bright plasma lightning erupted from her fingertips and cascaded in waves over the empty crate. Her cry seemed to last for minutes, all the while the violent energy poured out of her, sparking against the floor and bulkhead and leaving angry black burns in the durasteel. Her legs buckled and she dropped to her knees, her scream and her attack both abruptly ending simultaneously. Leia stood watching in stunned silence. Mara grabbed Leia's wrist weakly, trying to pull herself up. Leia helped her to her feet. Mara's expression was clear. Her display had terrified her, but there was some measure of pride behind the fear.

Leia was grinning from ear to ear. "You did it! I knew you could!"

Mara's face had paled; her body trembled and threatened to collapse. She allowed herself a weak smile. "Yeah," she said. "I guess I did." She shook her head. "That was…intense. The feeling of raw power…I've never felt anything like it. Not even the last time. It was amazing."

"Walk me through it," Leia said suddenly.

"What?" Mara asked groggily. "You? I'm not sure it's something you should be messing with. Not so early in your training. I mean, I've been using the Force my whole life and this…this just totally drained me." As if to bolster her argument, she swayed on her feet and had to steady herself against the bulkhead.

Leia reached out and helped steady her. "Please. I'll be fine." She added, "This mission is about testing my limits and expanding my power. I _want_ to do this."

Leia could see the conflict in Mara's eyes. "I just don't know, Leia," she said. "You-you may not be able to handle it. _I_ could barely handle it. And look at me, I'm a wreck."

"I bet it gets easier with time. I'm willing to risk it," Leia said defiantly.

Mara sighed, shaking her fiery mane in defeat. "Alright," she said. She stepped behind Leia, keeping one hand on the wall for support. She allowed herself to sink to the floor and closed her eyes. "First you have to think of something that hurts. Something that makes you hate. Then you have to destroy it. You need to feel as though annihilating this thing is what you want more than anything in the universe."

"Okay," Leia said, stepping up to the spot where Mara had stood. She closed her eyes and concentrated. She extended her hand, emulating Mara.

"You have to feel the Force gathering in your chest," Mara instructed, sounding a bit stronger. "Allow it to fill you up. Think of your body as an overloading powercell. Wait for the charge to reach critical mass, and then siphon the energy through your hands."

Leia did as she was told. She focused on memories that were painful, memories that she normally suppressed. She remembered being nineteen, standing behind the cadaverous psychopath Grand Moff Tarkin aboard the first Death Star. She remembered Darth Vader, her father, planting a firm hand on her shoulder, forcing her to watch as her home planet was obliterated. Forcing her to watch as her family, her friends, everyone she'd ever known and loved, simply ceased to exist. Her mind wandered to memories more recent. She thought back to her horror as she witnessed her brother torture and kill the man she loved.

Leia felt the anger welling up inside her. It gathered into a tight ball of hate square in her chest. She focused the Force inward, allowed the ball to grow. The pulsating darkness within her threatened to explode out in every direction. She resisted the urge to release the energy, instead stoking this inner fire even more. Her body began to tremble with fatigue. Feeling critical mass at last, she lowered the barrier containing the energy and funneled it through her arms and out her fingertips. Blue-white fire erupted from her hands and lashed out at the already demolished cargo crate. Energy bolts snaked around the container, blackening every surface they touched. She closed her fist, halting the flow of energy, and then abruptly knew only darkness.

* * *

><p>Arisin masked his surprise at seeing the lone figure waiting for him. Instantly he sized him up. He was tall, close to two meters. He was a Twi'lek, dressed in plain, somewhat familiar clothing. Then something caught Arisin's eye. A long cylindrical device hung at the Twi'lek's hip. It was a lightsaber. The very same lightsaber that he found hours before in the temple ruins.<p>

"That would make you Kas'im, wouldn't it?" Arisin addressed the being before him.

"Yes," said the same voice Arisin had heard on the audio diary entries. "Yes, I suppose it would." He unfolded his arms. "Might I be so bold as to inquire who you are and what exactly you're doing here?"

Arisin stepped forward into the grassy clearing. "It is a thousand years since your death. The Sith now number only two at any one time. I," he laid a hand on his chest, "am Darth Arisin." He noticed Kas'im wrinkle his nose at the title "Darth," as though he had smelled something foul. "I have only recently been ordained into the Order. My mission is to seek the knowledge of the Sith and to serve my master as best I can."

"And your master would be…?" Kas'im inquired.

"His Majesty, the Emperor, Darth Sidious," Arisin proudly informed him.

Kas'im sighed. "Have you _all_ taken the title 'Darth' for yourselves?"

Arisin nodded. "Since your student, Bane, wiped out the Sith and re-forged the Order."

"I see," Kas'im said in an even and carefully measured tone. "And what of this Darth Sidious? You called him 'Emperor'. Emperor of what, exactly?"

Arisin was growing weary of telling this story. "My master was elected Supreme Chancellor of the Republic," he explained flatly. "He then destroyed the Jedi Order and declared the Republic an Empire. And so it's been for twenty-five years now."

Kas'im raised an eyebrow. "Do you mean to say that Bane's ridiculous 'Rule of Two' actually _succeeded_?"

Arisin nodded again. "It took many generations, a thousand years, but yes. The Jedi are no more and the galaxy belongs to the Sith."

Kas'im chuckled lightly. "You truly believe the Jedi extinct?"

Arisin hesitated a moment before answering. "No," he said finally. "No, I believe there are Jedi who still live. But they are old, they are alone, and now _they_ are forced to live in hiding. Their order is broken. While some may still exist, their Order is effectively extinct."

"A single spark can ignite a blaze capable of destroying an entire city," countered Kas'im. "You are wise to not accept the Jedi as forever gone but naïve to dismiss those still alive as no threat. If what you say is true, the Sith existed as two individuals for a millennium and they managed to take down the entire Jedi Order _and_ the Republic."

Growing angry, Arisin pointed a menacing finger at the specter. "We are powerful enough to deal with any Jedi who decides to try something stupid."

"Of course you are," Kas'im said. Arisin detected the obvious patronizing note in his voice.

"What is it you're doing here, Kas'im? Why were you waiting for me?" Arisin gritted his teeth in anger, working the muscles of his jaw.

"I have no choice but to be here," Kas'im answered drearily. "The immense Dark Side saturation of the area trapped my essence when I died. I have been stuck here ever since, unable to move on. When you arrived, your presence was impossible to ignore. I was curious, drawn to the being with so much power." He paused a moment. "I wonder," he said, "what _exactly_ it is you are doing here. You claim to be searching for knowledge of the Sith, but as I told Bane all those centuries ago, there is nothing to be learned here."

"This planet has a strong connection to the Dark Side," Arisin said simply.

"Power for power's sake is dangerous, Lord Arisin," said Kas'im, inferring the Sith Lord's meaning. "That _is_ what you are doing here, is it not? Accumulating power?" Kas'im didn't give Arisin the chance to answer. "I sensed a massive disturbance in the area. It was you, sapping the Force out of the wreckage of the Star Forge, wasn't it?"

"It was," Arisin said in a dark voice. He narrowed his yellow eyes. "Just as I intend to drain the Force from the piece behind you. And every piece in the area."

Kas'im scoffed.

"You believe me a fool?" asked Arisin.

"I believe you too young and inexperienced to fully comprehend what you are doing," corrected Kas'im.

"What do you mean?"

Kas'im instantly adopted the role of the patient teacher Arisin had seen during his journey through space and time.

"How long have you been practicing the Force?" the blademaster asked. "At what age did you come into your power?"

"I was trained by a Jedi at the age of nineteen," Arisin answered.

"A Jedi?" Kas'im asked, surprised.

"He's now dead. That was four years ago," Arisin said.

The Sith spirit nodded in understanding. "You are young," he repeated. "You have only the most basic understanding of the Force. Your power is great, which makes you feel invincible. You have a taste of what you are capable and you want more.

"But the Force is not something you can simply consume at will. Too much too fast will destroy you. Why is it, you think, that the Sith and Jedi alike take lifetimes to hone and master the Force?"

Arisin thought hard over his words. There was undeniable wisdom in them. "I understand what you're saying, Lord Kas'im," he said. "I do. But you have one thing wrong. I do not seek power for power's sake. I seek the power to better serve my master and my Empire. More than power, I seek knowledge. The knowledge of the Ancient Sith, the most powerful beings this galaxy has ever known. I strive to bring peace to the galaxy and glory to the Sith."

"Bane once told me that glory was a fool's prize," said Kas'im, not quite convinced by Arisin's words.

"And he is right," Arisin admitted. "To a point. I want the galaxy to see the Sith as I now see them, as the _true_ guardians of peace and justice and the _true_ masters of the Force. I want to rid the Sith of the bad name the Jedi have been giving them, and that they have been giving themselves, for millennia."

"And that is most admirable, Lord Arisin," the Twi'lek told him. "It truly is. I only urge you to consider the consequences of pushing yourself too far too fast. What you desire will take decades. You cannot think that by gaining unlimited power, you can reach your goal any faster. That power will corrupt your inexperienced soul. It _will_ destroy you."

"And this is without a doubt my fate?" Arisin asked. "There isn't the slightest chance that I am strong enough to handle this power?"

Kas'im hesitated. Arisin saw conflict in his eyes.

"No," he said finally. "I cannot say for _certain_ that you will be destroyed."

"Then I'm sorry, Master Kas'im, but it's a risk I'm willing to take," Arisin said defiantly. "I appreciate your concern and will heed your warning. Of that, you have my word. But I feel that it's my destiny to do this. No matter what happens, I'm _meant_ to continue my mission until I either succeed or die trying."

"You are an enigma to me, Lord Arisin," said Kas'im, folding his arms across his chest. "Your intentions are pure. Indeed, your heart is as pure as any Jedi's. But the Dark Side is clearly yours to command. You are unquestionably Sith. Perhaps you are neither. A hybrid. The perfect Force-user." He shook his head, a lekku slipping off his shoulder. "Whatever you are, I, too, sense that it is your destiny. I wish you well on your journey." He bowed. "May the Force be with you." Before Arisin could say a word, Kas'im vanished, leaving the clearing empty of all but the Star Forge debris, which still beckoned him with tantalizing waves of Dark Side energy. He took no time to contemplate his encounter with the ancient blademaster. He set right to work drawing the power of the Star Forge into himself. As he did so, he felt more than ever that the path before him was clear, that he was doing exactly as he was meant to.

He dropped to his knees and spread his arms wide as he drank in the power. Everything was as it should be.

* * *

><p>Kyle Katarn awoke feeling the familiar disorientation of using his…<em>everything<em>…for the first time. The old man had been right about one thing, he thought as his vision cleared. Every time, his senses came back to him just a little bit faster. This time, his fifth, if his somewhat groggy memory could be trusted, seemed no more disorientating than waking from a particularly bad dream. Except in place of the reassuring knowledge that it wasn't real was the spirit crushing memory of trauma that was all too real. Instead of waking _from_ a nightmare, he was waking _into_ one.

This most recent death had been by far the most painful. He'd been fried with Force Lightning, had his lungs dissolved with caustic gas, had his larynx crushed with the Force and suffocated, and had liquid nitrogen funneled down his throat, freezing solid from the inside out. As horrible as those all were, none were as agonizing or prolonged as the latest. Kyle suppressed a shudder and wiped a tear from his eye as he remembered the intense pain. The Emperor had placed him in a room that slowly, over the course of an entire day, raised its temperature one degree every ten minutes.

By the end, the temperature had been well above the boiling point of water. The pain of all the liquid in his body turning to steam was beyond comprehension. A Human's body is comprised of almost seventy percent water, which means that once the room temperature exceeded the boiling point, it's only a matter of time before the moisture in its cells begins to vaporize, causing them to burst. It was a slow process, taking several hours. Kyle's nerve cells were transmitting pain right up until the end, even has his brain boiled and expanded in his skull.

Just before his death, Kyle pushed back the pain and allowed himself one final coherent thought: _Don't let him win. _With each new death, his hatred for Palpatine grew. He thought of giving in, allowing the old man to train him. Maybe he could become powerful enough to destroy him…_No!_ he though. _That's just what he wants, to break you. Don't let him._

The urge to give in to the Emperor's demands and end this suffering nearly overwhelmed him at times. He could feel his sanity slipping, his mental walls breaking down. Very simply, he couldn't guarantee himself that he could hold out indefinitely. And Palpatine certainly wasn't going to stop any time soon.

Kyle sat up from the gurney and dressed himself. A medical droid checked his vitals before allowing a pair of stormtroopers to escort him back to his cell. They marched to either side of him, each holding onto him at the elbow. He used to resist them, to pull out of their grips. Several rifle butts to the kidneys broke him of that habit. Now he allowed himself to be manhandled with no argument. When they reached the cell, the same cell where the dead Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi had first appeared to him, the troopers shoved him unceremoniously through the door, making him stumble to his cot. Again, he said nothing. One of the troopers sealed the door and Kyle heard the internal mechanism lock. He listened as their footsteps faded into the distance.

He allowed himself to collapse onto his cot. He sighed, not from exhaustion but despair. What was he going to do? His only means of fighting back had been taken from him when the Emperor banished Obi-Wan to—_where?_ What _had_ happened that day? He didn't even know how to begin theorizing. But he knew the specter certainly wasn't coming back. After that day, Kyle had found himself completely alone and utterly helpless. How in blazes was he going to get out of this one?

A tone sounded, breaking its way into Kyle's thoughts like a master slicer. He slowly looked around the small cell, trying to determine where the sound had come from. It came again. He snapped his head to the door. Or more accurately, the small computer screen on the wall beside the door. It was normally used as a means for the guards to communicate with prisoners without having to open the door. But Kyle hadn't heard anyone approach his cell to use the corresponding terminal out in the hallway.

The tone rang out a third time, sounding, if possible, increasingly urgent. Slowly, Kyle rose to his feet and made his way to the screen. Cautiously he tapped the "receive" button. The screen blinked once but remained blank.

_Odd_.

He was about to tap the screen again when words began to scroll across it in bold letters.

"YOU HAVE AN ALLY IN THE PALACE," it read.

"What sort of joke is this?" Kyle wondered aloud.

The screen went blank, and then more words scrolled into sight. "NO JOKE," they read.

Puzzled, Kyle asked, "You can hear me?"

A moment later, "YES." The word typed slowly as if to further drive the point home that Kyle was being monitored.

"Who are you?" Kyle asked quietly, not wanting to draw any unnecessary attention to his cell. "What about the holocams in here?" he nodded to the two cams placed in opposing corners of the cell. "They'll know someone's talking to me."

"CANNOT TELL YOU WHO I AM," the words typed out cryptically. "I HAVE SHUT DOWN THE CAMERAS IN YOUR CELL AND PLACED THEM ON A LOOP. WE HAVE A FEW MINUTES BEFORE I MUST RETURN THEM TO A LIVE FEED."

"Alright," Kyle began skeptically. "You're my ally. Can you get me out of here?"

The screen remained blank.

"Well?" Kyle asked. "Can you?"

Finally, one word appeared. "YES."

Kyle admitted to himself that that wasn't the answer he was expecting. "Really?"

"I BELIEVE SO," the screen responded. "BUT I NEED TIME."

"You know what the Emperor is?" Kyle asked. "What he's been doing to me?"

"YES."

"Then you know that time is all I have," he said.

A fresh message began to scroll. "I HAVE TO GO. I JUST WANTED YOU TO KNOW THAT YOU AREN'T ALONE."

"Thank you," Kyle said sincerely, if not somewhat skeptically. "You won't tell me your name, so what should I call you?"

"YOU CAN CALL ME ARDY."

"Farewell then, _Ardy_. Assuming you can get me out of here, I am in your debt." The screen flashed back to its standby mode and Kyle knew his new friend had gone. "That," he said to himself, "was weird."

* * *

><p>"Charming to do business with you, Princess, as always."<p>

Leia and Mara once again found themselves sitting across from the bounty hunter Dengar and his heavily scarred and robed associate, who refers to himself simply as "a ghost." Leia looked away, frustrated at the games they were playing with her. She noticed a dark skinned Human glancing her way and was vaguely reminded of Lando Calrissian.

Mara gave her partner a venomous look. Dengar laughed.

"Ladies, let's not make things unpleasant." His lips, covered in crisscrossed scars, parted in an amused smile. "My friend here and I would be happy to help the Empire in any capacity we can."

The "ghost" added, "For a price, of course," from the shadows of his deep hood.

Mara spoke before Leia could utter a sound. "Just like last time, boys. Our money's good and we've got a lot of it."

"Then we look forward to being of service," Dengar said, rising from his seat. "Now may I suggest we discuss this somewhere more private?" He gestured to the cantina patrons surrounding them. "My ship is close by—"

"Our ship is closer," Leia said, interrupting the bounty hunter. For once, Mara didn't shoot her a dirty look

"We insist," Mara added.

Dengar looked first at his partner then back and forth between the women.

He sighed. "Alright, Jade. Lead the way."

Once the four had made their way back to the _Jade Sabre_ and concluded that they were safe from eavesdroppers, Mara began making their request.

"We karked up our mission to kill Breyac and we need to find him," she explained. "We have no leads and Imperial Intelligence, lately an oxymoron, lost track of him as soon as he left Coruscanti space. His ship has a navdat scrambler. The coordinates we _were_ able to pick up were gibberish."

Dengar's robed associate spoke up in his exotic accent that Leia still couldn't quite place. Concord Dawn, maybe? But muddled, well-traveled. "Just what makes you think we can track him, Jade?" he asked. "Breyac is the kind of being who can afford to get lost and _stay_ lost." He crossed his arms and cocked his head, waiting for a response.

"Because," Mara began, "you have connections in his world. Because money is no object." She paused, looking somehow past the deep shadows beneath the hood and straight into the hidden face. "And most of all, because you're Boba Fett and you don't fail. Ever."

Leia's eyes widened in surprise and she let out a gasp. _"Boba Fett?"_

The robed man let out a sigh. He brought up his scarred hands and lowered his hood, revealing a face much less scarred than one might have imagined. To Leia, he appeared to be nearing forty. She was surprised. For some reason she always guessed he'd be older.

"Despite the best efforts of Captain Solo, I remain very much alive," he said, his face a blank slate. "A fact I'd like to keep just between us, Jade."

Leia's mouth hung agape. "But how?" she asked him. "I watched you die. I _saw_ you fall into the Pit of Carkoon on Tatooine just months ago."

"You saw me fall, yes. But it would seem, Princess, that—"

"The Sarlacc found you indigestible," finished Dengar, rolling his eyes. "He tells it the same way _every_ time. Now," he turned to Leia, "can we get down to business?"

"Yes, let's," said Mara.

"Wait," Leia wasn't quite finished. She looked to Mara. "I'm just curious about something. How did you know who he was?"

Mara shrugged. "Just put the clues together," she said. "Obvious acid burns look fresh, he said Solo was to blame, and he said the last time he saw you was down the barrel of a gun. I was in Jabba's Palace, too, Princess. Of course, I was there to kill your brother. But I remember your little stunt with the thermal detonator drew more than a few blasters, Mr. Fett's here included," she said, nodding in Fett's direction. "It all just fit."

"Huh," Leia said, apparently satisfied. "That's pretty good."

"Yes, ingenious," Fett said, clearly agitated. "Can we get back on track?"

"Yes, of course," Leia said. "Sorry."

"We figure he has a hidden base somewhere. A safehouse he goes to when things get too hot for him to be on Coruscant." Mara shrugged. "But we don't have a clue where that might be. If we find his safehouse, we find him. We need you two to do that thing you do and find that base."

Dengar snorted. "Is that all? You sure you don't want us to evolve wings and fly you there, too?"

"Cute," Leia said sarcastically.

"Do you have any idea how difficult he'll be to find?"

"I can find him in three days," Fett said, drawing a surprised grunt from Dengar. "But it'll cost you. Big."

Leia raised an eyebrow. "How much?"

"Ten."

"Ten thousand?" she asked.

Fett sighed and closed his eyes, the way one would who was getting frustrated by a child but didn't want to yell. "No, Princess," he said. "Ten _million_. Black Sun happens to be a large part of our clientele. If I'm going to help you take them down, I want it to be worth it."

"Deal," Mara extended a hand, which Fett shook. "You'll get one hundred now and the other ninety-nine percent once you've found him and we confirm the information is accurate."

"Ten percent is customary," Fett reminded sharply.

"Ten percent isn't usually a million credits," Mara told him. "What's to stop you from taking the cool million and leaving us high and dry?"

"My word," Fett snapped. "I'm no thief, Jade."

"Sorry, Fett, but not good enough. Don't worry; you find him and you'll get your money. You have _my_ word."

Fett nodded; evidently, he recognized that he wasn't going to get a better deal than that. "Are you sure you don't want us to take him for you?"

"I think we can handle him ourselves," Leia said.

"Clearly," Fett retorted without looking at her. "Alright, Jade. You'll have your information in seventy-two hours." He raised his hood and signaled to Dengar with a subtle nod that the meeting was over. Dengar inclined his head politely at the two women and followed Fett back into the muck-filled streets of Nar Shaddaa.

* * *

><p>Darth Arisin was nearing another large section of the Star Forge. Lord Kas'im's words were weighing heavily on his mind. Could he really handle the volume of power he was taking for himself? He didn't have a definite answer to that. He just had to have faith in himself. The Emperor did. That should be enough. The Emperor was powerful and wise. He wouldn't send his apprentice out unless he believed him strong enough to deal with whatever he was confronted with.<p>

Arisin spent the last hundred meters or so reassuring himself that he was doing the right thing. Slashing through the dense foliage, he left smoking cauterized stumps in his wake. Thick leaves, full of water, sizzled when they came into contact with his blade.

He noticed the jungle beginning to thin out, a sign that he was nearing the impact site. Through the trees ahead, he could see the dull glint of sunlight bouncing off metal. He parted the last trees and vines with the Force and stepped into the clearing. But he was not alone. Before him stood, once again, the form of Lord Kas'im.

The two made eye contact, both looking equally surprised.

"Oh damn," Kas'im said with a sigh.

* * *

><p>The Emperor sat in quiet contemplation. Things were not going as expected with Katarn. He knew it would take more to break the young man, but he had to admit to himself that Katarn's will was much stronger than he imagined. He couldn't sense the man's mental barriers weakening in the least. He'd have to try a new approach. But what? Katarn doesn't fear death. He knows there's always a clone body waiting for him. And Palpatine highly doubted that even if there wasn't a fresh body waiting Katarn would fear dying. The man doesn't fear pain; Palpatine never sensed anxiety before the executions, which Katarn knows will be more painful than the last. So what does Kyle Katarn fear most?<p>

He commed one of his personal aides, Dyna, with the press of a button on the arm of his chair.

A moment passed, and then a woman's voice answered.

"_Yes, Your Majesty?"_

"Ms. Gaiten, I should like to know everything there is to know about Kyle Katarn. _Everything_. I don't care how trivial. I want every record we have on him sent to me as soon as it is compiled."

"_Right away, sir. It may take some time. He doesn't strike me as being one to keep strict records."_

The Emperor shook his head. "It matters not," he said. "But he was once an Imperial stormtrooper. Begin your search there."

"_Very well, Your Majesty. I'll have the information to you as soon as I can."_

The old man turned his throne to face the large office window. The view it gave would render many beings breathless. He laced his fingers together in front of his face, examining the network of wrinkles that covered the backs of his hands. He very suddenly felt every one of his eighty-six years weigh on him. For the first time in his life he felt _old_.

He took a moment to ponder why he was investing so much of his time in Kyle Katarn when he already had an apprentice—a _willing_ apprentice—of almost incalculable power. Could it be he was trying to prove something to himself? Perhaps subconsciously he needed to show himself that he hadn't dimmed, hadn't slowed, hadn't weakened. That time hadn't stolen away the power he'd always had over people. In proving his power to others, he was proving it to _himself_.

_Nonsense_, he thought. _I am as powerful now as I ever have been._ As if to prove the claim, he focused on the backs of his hands and watched as the wrinkles smoothed. Within moments, he was staring at healthy pink rejuvenated skin. The effect was only momentary and his hands reverted back to their pale, gnarled state the moment he broke his concentration, but it served to quiet his mind for the time being. Self-doubt was a weakness. And as he'd told his apprentice, weakness is death. Darth Sidious wasn't ready for death to take him just yet. If Lord Arisin was successful in acquiring the power he needed, Sidious needn't fall to death _ever_.

_He will find it_, Sidious thought. _If anyone can, he will. He is just as powerful as his father was and nowhere near as reckless. If the power is out there to find, Darth Arisin will find it. And if it is not, we will discover it together._

Darth Sidious watched the sky darken from pale blue to crimson to deep purple. Finally, as night fell completely, the sky was tinted with the yellow-green lights from the Government District. There were no stars visible from Coruscant and hadn't been since long before the foundation of the Old Republic. Thousands of artificial stars, transports and speeders of all shapes and sizes, streaked across the horizon like so many meteors. It all ran like a well-oiled machine. Sidious was immensely proud of his city. It had the highest concentration of sentient life anywhere in the galaxy, all of them wrapped up neatly in the palm of his withered hand. His lips parted in a smile. _Every one of them_, he thought, _is safe and sound in their pathetic little lives because of what _I've_ created. I just ended a war, did I not? I'm not weakening at all. If Master Windu were to materialize this very moment and demand retribution for his death twenty-five years ago I would defeat him again as I did then. Even without the assistance of a torn young Jedi Knight_, he added.

A small light flashed on the arm of his throne like a frantic lava beetle. He pressed the button. "Yes?" he said gravelly.

"_Your Majesty, this is Dyna."_ The woman's voice was loud in the silence of his office.

"You've finished your search so soon?" the Emperor asked with surprise.

"_No, Highness. But I have come across something that may be of interest to you and thought I should tell you straight away."_

"By all means, proceed, Ms. Gaiten," he told her.

"_Kyle Katarn's father, Morgan Katarn, was a non-Jedi Force-sensitive who, towards the end of his life, befriended a survivor of the Jedi Rebellion, Jedi Knight Qu Rahn. Morgan was killed by Imperial Inquisitor Jerec four years ago. Qu Rahn's status is unconfirmed but was verified as being alive as recently as three years ago."_

"Interesting, my dear, but hardly groundbreaking," the Emperor said. "I already know Katarn is a Force-sensitive. It's a genetic trait, so it doesn't surprise me in the least that his father was likewise sensitive."

"_There's more, Your Highness,"_ she continued. _"Unverified reports state that, before he died, Morgan Katarn entrusted his son Kyle with the location of something called the 'Valley of the Jedi.' I did research on it, sir, and apparently it's a Jedi legend—"_

"Yes," Sidious purred. "Yes, Ms. Gaiten, I know what the Valley is. It has been lost for a millennium. Most do not believe it exists. You say Kyle Katarn knows its location?"

"_As I said, Your Highness, the reports are unverified. But I felt it warranted being brought to your attention."_

Sidious grinned in the dark, his yellow eyes glinting demonically in a pair of speeder headlights as they flew by. "You have done well. Report anything else of significance to me immediately."

"_Of course, Your Highness."_

Gears and wheels were spinning in his devious mind now. He'd just been handed a wonderful gift and only needed to open it. And he thought he knew just how to do it.

* * *

><p>Kyle was sleeping a dark dreamless sleep. After everything he'd been through, what did he have to dream <em>about<em>? His future was dismal and didn't look to be getting better any time soon. He only hoped the Emperor would eventually tire of playing this sick game and kill him for good.

His new friend "Ardy" hadn't contacted him since the initial bizarre conversation they'd had days ago via the cell's computer screen. Early on, he was skeptical about this escape plan. By now, all hope had evaporated. Not that there was much to begin with. He had just accepted that this would be his life from now on. He wasn't going to betray the Rebellion and he certainly wasn't going to become one of Palpatine's Sith pets. He knew eventually he'd just be killed. And it wasn't even that he'd given up. If the opportunity to escape ever presented itself he'd absolutely take it. He just wasn't going to hold his breath until that happened.

It was this philosophy that suppressed his dreams. And because he no longer dreamed, he knew the frantic beeping he heard was coming from the real world.

He awoke with a start. A message was flashing on the screen by the door.

"PALPATINE IS COMING!" It was Ardy.

"So?" Kyle said groggily. "I've seen him before. I'm not impressed."

"HE'S COMING FOR INFORMATION." The message scrolled in excited block lettering.

"Well he's not going to get it so calm down," assured the screen as he climbed to his feet. "He's killed me half a dozen times in the most grotesque ways imaginable and I haven't cracked yet."

"HE'S SITH."

"I'm aware," Kyle growled, getting annoyed. "I've resisted him 'til now. And if he can use the Force to pull stuff from my head then knowing ahead of time won't help me anyway, will it?"

One last frantic message flashed before the screen went blank: "HE'S HERE!"

Kyle heard the light rustle of thick fabric at the door. He crossed his arms and stood in the center of the cell, waiting for his executioner. The door slid open, revealing the Emperor draped in his usual black robes.

"So what's it going to be this time—" A flash of blue light illuminated every corner of the cell and Kyle dropped to the floor with a dull thud.

Palpatine lowered the small blaster he carried in his right hand. He had seldom in his life ever used such a weapon, preferring either his lightsaber or the Force. But there were times when a blaster set to stun made situations infinitely easier.

"Bring him," the old man commanded the guards stationed at the end of hallway.

Kyle awoke with a Hutt sized headache. He rubbed his eyes and tried to remember what happened. _He shot me!_ he remembered at once. _The old man kreffing shot me!_

He sat up and saw the familiar sight of the med chamber. At first, he thought he'd been cloned again. But things felt different. There was no disorientation. And he didn't usually have a headache. He'd been _stunned_. So where was the Emperor? Where were the guards? He was completely alone.

"Go!" said a voice. "You have only minutes."

Kyle looked around but saw no one. "What? Hello?"

"The guards will return soon. I've distracted them but you have to hurry." It was a male's voice, urgent and familiar. But as it turned out, disembodied voices were difficult to identify. Kyle was still confused.

"Who _are_ you?" he asked, still looking around as if expecting someone to leap out from behind a piece of medical equipment.

An old man with wispy gray hair appeared before him, glowing faintly blue and transparent. Kyle jumped to his feet, sending the gurney rolling several meters.

"Come now," the man said. "You don't recognize your own father?"

"Dad!"

Morgan Katarn smiled. "Come on. We have to get you out of here."

Kyle raised an eyebrow. "'We'?"

The specter rolled his eyes. "The royal 'we'. _You and I_ have to get you out of here. Is that better?"

"But—"

Morgan raised a finger to silence his son. "No time to argue. We need to get you to the Valley of the Jedi before the Sith find it. Palpatine knows I told you where it is. He's going to try to take it from you."

"Are you sure we can get out of here?" Kyle asked, skeptical. "This isn't exactly a moisture farm on Tatooine."

The elder Katarn nodded his translucent head. "There are several hidden turbolifts throughout the Palace leading to emergency shuttles that are kept on standby. If you hurry, you can steal one."

"What about you?" Kyle asked Morgan.

"What _about_ me? I'm already dead, remember?"

Kyle shook his head. "Palpatine…he's powerful. He can destroy you." He didn't quite know how to explain it since he had no idea how it actually worked.

"Destroy me? Son, _I'm dead_. I'm about as destroyed as you can get. One with the Force and all that."

Kyle shook his head again defiantly. "He can. I've seen it. When Obi-Wan Kenobi came to me, as you are now, the Emperor did something. I don't know what, but it was like Kenobi was stripped from this plane, sucked into some weird vortex. Apparently he did the same to someone called Yoda."

Morgan knitted his brow. "Well I still doubt it, but if you're that concerned, I'll just make sure I'm long gone when he gets here. Now come _on_ before he gets here while we're rambling on!" The ghost sprinted out of the room, Kyle right behind him.

They ran through half a dozen empty corridors before stopping.

"Where is everyone?" Kyle asked, catching his breath.

"This wing of the Palace operates with minimum staff twice a week. It's financially more efficient," Morgan explained. "This is one of those days. We'll be fine as long as we get you out fast." He made a sweeping gesture with his arm. "Come on, it's this way." He took off down another hallway.

"How do you know all this?" Kyle asked as he jogged behind Morgan.

Morgan paused to look at his son and smiled. "You'd be surprised what you know when you're one with the Force." He gave Kyle a wink. "Let's go. It's imperative you get to the Valley before the Sith."

"You keep saying that. Why am I going there? Would my escape be enough to keep them from finding it? And what do I do once I get there?"

Morgan sighed. "You must listen to the Force. You aren't trained, but your connection is strong. To be honest, I don't know _why_ you have to go, but you do. It's the will of the Force. Can't you feel it? It's your _destiny_."

Kyle said nothing but nodded. He followed Morgan down several more eerily deserted corridors before they stopped in front of one of the more than one-million tapestries hanging throughout the Palace, each one representing an Imperial member world. Kyle leaned forward and read the planet's name. _Geonosis. Never heard of it._ With encouragement from his spectral father, Kyle pulled the thick hanging aside, revealing what appeared to be a simple single-person turbolift.

"Get inside," Morgan told him. "It's all automatic. It'll take you straight to the shuttle. GO!"

"But—"

"I'll meet you there, Kyle," Morgan said. "Just go!"

Without further argument, Kyle stepped into the lift, which immediately began to ascend. The trip lasted nearly half a minute. When the door slid open, Kyle saw exactly what he'd been told would be there: a _Lambda_-class shuttle sat in the center of a small hanger bay, coolant steam rising like smoke from dorsal vents. True to his word, Morgan Katarn was standing beside the shuttle's folded left wing.

"Come on," he said urgently. "Get inside." The ramp was already lowered, opening into the cabin like a gaping mouth waiting to swallow him whole. Kyle thought it was odd, but he imagined a hidden shuttle in a secret bay probably wouldn't need to be locked up. Shoving all reservations to the back of his mind, he ran up the gangplank and settled himself down in the pilot's seat. Morgan had appeared in the co-pilot's chair.

"Just put in the nav data for the Valley and you're free," he said. "By the time they realize you're gone, you'll be half-way there." Morgan nodded to the navicomp console with a smile.

Kyle strapped himself in and reached for the nav controls. He paused.

Morgan's smile faded. "What's the matter, Son? Have you forgotten?"

Kyle slowly shook his head. "No, something just doesn't feel right."

"Kyle, you _must_ get to the Valley of the Jedi before the Sith. And my time here is almost up. I need to know you still remember the location. Please, input the coordinates before they find you missing."

Kyle nodded. "Alright, Dad." He turned to look his father in his glowing blue face. "Thanks for finding me. I—I've missed you a lot."

Morgan smiled. "I know. And someday you'll join me in the Force." He cleared his throat. "But now you have a galaxy to save."

"Right," said Kyle with a smile. Both men turned their attention to the nav screen as Kyle input the coordinates of the Valley.

Beside him, his father gave a chuckle. "That was easier than I expected," said a voice that froze Kyle's blood. He jerked his head to the side, eyes wide, and looked at his father. Morgan was staring back at him, a malevolent grin on his face. Slowly, Morgan dissolved, replaced by the disfigured visage of the Emperor.

Kyle snapped awake with a start, seeing the Emperor's face hovering over him. It was like remembered the last fleeting moments of a dream. Only this was no dream.

Palpatine looked to someone out of Kyle's line of sight. "I've got what I need. Take him back to his cell." He looked back down at Kyle and gave him a broad grin. His cold bony hands were pressed against the sides of Kyle's head. "Thank you for giving me the location of the Valley of the Jedi," Palpatine said. "I promise to put it to good use."

* * *

><p>"Lord Kas'im," Arisin said in surprise. "What are you doing here?"<p>

The blademaster let out a loud sigh. "It would seem I've become anchored to you. There are times that the Force seems to have a sense of humor," he said dryly.

"Anchored? You mean you're…stuck to me?"

Kas'im rolled his eyes. "It would appear so. For the time being," he added quickly.

"So," Arisin began, "will you still be with me when I board my ship and leave?"

The ancient Sith Lord shrugged. "The Force works in mysterious ways. I have no idea what the limits are."

"Have you ever heard of something like this before?"

Kas'im shrugged. "I know of Sith Lords who have anchored themselves to locations of great power, but never to individuals."

"Like Lord Kun," Arisin offered.

"Yes," Kas'im said. "I believe the residual power of the Star Forge trapped my spirit in this place. But after you absorbed so much power, you must have snagged me away, like one magnet overtaking the power of another and grabbing a piece of scrap."

Arisin snorted. "Interesting analogy."

Kas'im glared. "I don't claim to understand every aspect of the Force. Do _you_ have a better explanation?"

The young Sith Lord mulled over it a moment. "No," he said finally. "I suppose it's as good a theory as any."

"So what are we going to do about it?"

Arisin shrugged. "I don't know. Find a way to make the best of it, I guess."

Kas'im raised an eyebrow. "What do you suggest?"

"Well, you're a blademaster, are you not?" Arisin said. "You can instruct me. I've never had formal training outside the few lessons Lord Sidious has given me."

Kas'im thought a moment. "I suppose," he said slowly. "It's not like I have much choice."

"Good," Arisin said. "You can be my tutor while I'm away from my master."

"How wonderfully exciting for me," Kas'im said with all the excitement of ferrocrete curing. "I can hardly wait to—"

Arisin held up a hand, stopping the blademaster mid-sentence. Kas'im gave him a puzzled look. Arisin had his head tilted to the side, as though listening to some unseen messenger. Kas'im resisted the urge to ask what was going on.

After a few moments, Arisin snapped back. "We're going to Ruusan," he told the blademaster.

"Wha—_Ruusan?_" Kas'im was confused. "What could possibly be on Ruusan?"

Arisin smiled. "The Valley of the Jedi."

Kas'im paused a moment. "The _what?_"

* * *

><p>Ragnor Breyac ran a red-skinned hand through his blue-black hair, which was more than a little unkempt. He'd been forced into using the safe house he never thought he'd need. Sunlight glinted through a small window that looked out at the lush world of Ruusan. A thousand years ago, this planet, indeed this very continent, had been the crucible in which the last incarnation of the Old Republic had been forged. Seven great battles had been waged between the Jedi and their sworn enemies, the Sith. The Sith had been wiped out and the Jedi crippled for generations, only to be crushed themselves by the Empire's iron fist centuries later.<p>

Even ten centuries after the last battle, a keen eye could still make out the scars of long forgotten war. Breyac built his safe house less than a kilometer from the cave system in which the last battle took place. And if historians were correct, it wasn't a battle so much as a massacre. After six previous battles, the Sith were few in number, as were the Jedi. In a last ditch effort, they had lured a large group of Jedi into the caves, where the Sith Masters unleashed some sort of Force weapon that obliterated both factions. The only survivors had been a handful of Jedi held back a safe distance away. Since that battle, nebular shifts had erased almost all hyperspace routes to and from the planet, isolating it. Before long, it had been completely forgotten by the Jedi and the Republic. Even the Empire hadn't attempted to take it. It was the perfect place for someone who wanted to disappear for a while. The planet was home to the inbred descendants of Human colonists and a strange race of beings called Bouncers; meter-wide balls of green fur with long, ribbon-like tails. The creatures seemed to defy gravity, floating above the ground and traveling on the wind like fuzzy green balloons. He doubted either species would be a liability to him.

The safe house was a fully automated base that could operate without any organic staff one hundred percent of the time. It was designed to house a single person at a time and was stocked with several years' worth of supplies. It had been built into a hill laced with sensor-jamming veins of unique xeroite ore. Coupled with nebular radiation, the xeroite made it impossible to detect the facility from orbit. And even on-planet one would need to be standing directly on top of it with out-dated ground penetrating radar to find the void within the hill. Theoretically, he was completely hidden from all manner of surveillance technology.

Even with all of that, he found himself wondering if it would be enough. He was being chased by Jedi, after all. At least he thought they were Jedi. They had lightsabers. And the Force. For all he knew, the introduction of the Force into the equation made all of his precautions impotent. Could they detect him through solid rock? He just didn't know. Even if they _did_ somehow manage to find him, he had a state-of-the-art defense system. Hopefully even Jedi would have a hard time with it. At the very least, it should buy him the time he needed to escape. Again.

The very tired vigo sat down in his ridiculously expensive Verpine built chair and scooted up to his even more ridiculously expensive Hapan taq wood desk. He absently thought that he should be using a coaster for his cup of caf as he waved a hand over the built-in holoprojector. He accessed the footage from his Coruscant office, which was stored in his ship's memory banks. He studied the two women during the entire verbal exchange. The red-haired woman had identified herself simply as "Emperor's Hand," whatever _that_ was. It couldn't be good, though. He'd searched Black Sun's extensive database for her face and title and come up blank. It was as if she didn't exist, which worried him even more. No record meant Imperial agent. And based on her title, he could guess whom she reported to. Which meant Palpatine _himself_ wanted him dead. If that was the case, he might not be safe _anywhere_ in the known galaxy.

He shook his head and turned his attention to the other woman. Now _this_ one he knew. He paused the recording. The woman with the Imperial agent was without a doubt Leia Organa. Breyac zoomed in on the Alderaanian princess' face. "What are you doing there?" he asked aloud, taking a sip of his steaming caf. "Your Rebellion is dead. Why are you with a woman calling herself 'Emperor's Hand' and why are you after _me_? A grudge with Black Sun? But you already killed Xizor." _Well your _father_ did, anyway_. He knew her brother had replaced Vader as Palpatine's pet. Had she, too, aligned herself with His Royal Ugliness? That sounded pretty unlikely. She was one of the leaders of the resistance _against_ the Empire. But while logic told him the idea was ludicrous, the evidence told another story. "Huh," he said as he took another sip of the hot beverage. "Interesting."

A door slid open behind him and a silver protocol droid shuffled in. "May I replace your drink, sir?" it asked in that overly polite tone that always grated on Ragnor's nerves.

"TC-47, haven't I told you to knock first?" he asked sharply. He never much liked droids. Artificial life gave him the creeps.

The droid tilted his head to the side in confusion. "Well, no, sir."

The Zeltron sighed and ran his fingers through his hair again. "Well I'm telling you now."

"Alright, sir." TeeCee Forty-Seven left the room, the door hissing shut behind him. A moment later, there came a metallic tapping at the door.

Breyac rolled his eyes. "Kreffing droids," he muttered under his breath. "Come in, you stupid walking toaster."

The door opened and TeeCee Forty-Seven entered again, servos whining. "May I replace your drink, sir?" he repeated, unaffected by Ragnor's insult.

He downed the rest of his hot drink rather painfully and handed the cup to the droid. "Yes. Another caf. And this time, add some Corellian fire whiskey to it. I'm having a bad week."

* * *

><p>True to his word, Boba Fett had taken just under seventy-two hours to acquire Vigo Breyac's hidden location. Mara and Leia had made use of their free time by sparring in the <em>Jade Sabre<em>'s cargo hold. Kay and Drey had been keeping watch outside the ship despite Leia insisting that it was unnecessary. Mara had suggested that perhaps it was their idea of fun. Leia had just shrugged.

During their three-day layover, both women had improved their saber skills considerably. They sparred no less than four hours a day and drilled separately for a further three hours. Leia couldn't help but think that this was exactly what the Emperor had hoped would happen. She sensed their pairing was meant to be a lesson for _both_ of them. She hoped they wouldn't disappoint.

Early evening of the third day, the ship's comm alerted them to an incoming call. Mara extinguished her lightsaber and activated the cargo hold's comm. "Go ahead," she said, wiping sweat from her glistening brow. Leia likewise deactivated her blade and listened in.

"_Jade, it's Fett. I have what you requested. Transmitting now."_ Fett's voice echoed slightly in the mostly empty hold. Leia couldn't help but smile. Maybe, just maybe, this mission was almost over.

"Copy," Mara said. "Transfer of funds upon confirmation of data transmission." She turned to Leia. "C'mon, we'll take this in the cockpit."

Leia followed the other woman through the bowels of the ship up to the cramped pilot station that reminded her more than a little of the _Millennium Falcon_. Pangs of sadness hit her as she realized for the first time that the ship would have been destroyed at Endor, along with her pilot, Lando Calrissian. Instantly she thought of the man in the bar who had reminded her of him. She didn't know why she hadn't thought of it until now. _Two more casualties I have to make up for_, she thought. _My war killed so many. I was such a fool._

Mara stopped dead in her tracks and spun around to face Leia.

"Princess," she said, grabbing her by the shoulders. "You're sending out _waves_ of self-pity. I'm frakkin' drowning here. Either get over it or…well, _get over it_. Alright?"

"I was just—," Leia began, unsure of what to say. "I mean…I'm sorry. I'm still realizing the extent of the damage I've caused. Little things keep reminding me of what I've lost."

"And we can talk about that," Mara said, letting go of the other woman. "_After_ we find out where we're going and how we're going to bag us a Black Sun vigo. Okay?"

Leia nodded. "Got it. Sorry."

Mara stepped into the cockpit, Leia in tow, and settled down into the flight chair. She flipped a switch and the data screen flared to life, showing a message received. Mara spent the next few minutes decrypting the package, skimming over bits as the files extracted. It was a tangle of sources and contacts, which she absently scrolled through without giving them much thought. Leia tried to follow along but found it difficult. Mara gave a quiet "Huh!" and continued reading.

"Feel like sharing?" Leia asked her.

"In a minute," Mara replied. Everything she read pointed to only one possible location: Ruusan. She searched her brain. _I know that name_, she thought. _Why do I know that name?_ She remembered. The planet had been completely forgotten by the galaxy after a shifting nebula cut off all hyperspace routes through the system. You couldn't even find it on starmaps younger than a thousand years old. It was way out there from the Core but relatively close to Hutt Space, where they just happened to be. Amazed at their luck, she turned to Leia. "He's on Ruusan," she told her with a grin.

"Ruusan?" Leia echoed. "I don't think I've never heard of it."

"Unless you're a history buff, there's no particular reason you should have. But he's there," Mara said confidently. "He's definitely there." She turned back to the communications console and punched in a frequency. "Jade to Fett. Package received and confirmed. Payment to be deposited within the hour."

"_Pleasure doing business with you,"_ answered the gruff voice.

"Likewise." She started going through the pre-flight check as she explained everything to Leia, who still sat there wondering just why she should be so happy.

"You see," Mara began, "Ruusan was this planet that was pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things but during the last big war sat in the middle of a hyperspace route that _was_ significant. It provided access to some pretty important systems. The Sith wanted it and the Jedi couldn't afford to lose it."

Recognition graced Leia's face. "The Ruusan Reformation," she said. "I always wondered what that was about."

Mara nodded. "Yup. The Ruusan Reformation. The war ended on that planet and the Republic was reorganized and the Constitution rewritten. The Sith wiped themselves out there, along with a good number of Jedi. But," she said, turning her head away from the data screen to look Leia in the eye, "here's the kicker: even though they won, the Jedi were so embarrassed by their heavy losses that they erased the planet from their records. Then, shortly after the war, a kreffing nebula shift wiped out the precious hyperspace routes to and from the system. Talk about irony."

Leia raised an eyebrow. "You're talking about _a lost planet?_"

Mara smiled and nodded. "Yes, I am. A lost planet. And _that's_ how I know he's there. Where better to find a high-profile target than a place you've never heard of and couldn't get to even if you had?"

"How do _you_ know about it?"

Mara shrugged, he red hair falling from her shoulders. "I _am_ a bit of a history buff, actually. Lots of interesting things have happened in this galaxy's history."

"Alright," Leia accepted. "Good enough for me. So," she said with the tone of one about to ask the sixty-five-thousand credit question, "he found a way to get there. How do _we_?"

"If we can find where he most likely jumped _from_," she said, pulling up a map of the galaxy, "then the _Sabre_ _should_ be able to pick up his hyperdrive signature and make the calculations. A little help from the Force and we could be breathing down his neck in no time."

Leia shrugged. "Sounds like a plan to me. Let's do it."

* * *

><p>A familiar frenetic beeping sound woke Kyle from a deep sleep. After a couple weeks of captivity, the cell's rock hard cot stopped feeling quite so uncomfortable. He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He slipped his boots on over his bare feet and stumbled drunkenly across the cell to tap the viewscreen's "receive" button. <em>What time is it?<em> he wondered as a message scrolled across the screen in the standard agitated block text.

"GET READY. WE'RE LEAVING NOW!"

Just as Kyle read the last word there was a soft his and click as the cell door slid open. "Huh," he said with a bit of surprise.

"I'VE CLEARED A PATH TO A NEARBY SHUTTLE BAY." A map flashed on screen with a route highlighted and blinking, snaking through the Palace schematics. Kyle instinctively memorized the simple route instantly. Habit.

"I WILL BE WAITING FOR YOU THERE. HURRY!"

"Thanks a bunch, Ardy," Kyle said under his breath. He was wary after what the Emperor had done to him the day before, using the Force to create a hallucination in order to glean the location of the Valley of the Jedi from his mind. But Ardy had mentioned an escape _before_ Palpatine had frakked with his mind and he couldn't believe his ally was just another one of the Sith's tricks. No, this was a legitimate escape. He was out the door and running before he had a chance to second-guess the situation.

Off in the far distance he could hear shrill alarm klaxons blaring. His heart leapt into his throat. He'd been discovered! He was convinced that the Palace Guard was mobilizing that very moment to track him down. But his logical brain kicked in. _They'd have found you by now_, it said. _That's Ardy's distraction. It's in a far away section of the Palace._ It was enough to settle his mind and he kept running, not stopping until he reached the shuttle bay.

He recognized it as the one he was brought through. It probably serviced the detention center exclusively, he thought. It made sense, anyway. He reached out to the control panel but was stopped mid-way when the doors slid open by themselves. As they parted, a cool breeze washed over his face, the smells of machinery and fuel filling his nose. Cautiously—he never forgot just where he was and whom he was dealing with—he stepped inside.

The shuttle sat facing away from him, its engines humming and prepped for takeoff. _Someone_ knew he'd be there. Ignoring his instinct to run aboard, he made the trip around the ship at a slow pace, his heart beating in his throat. Blood pounded at his temples. He didn't know why he was so nervous. Most of him didn't even believe this was real. It had to be another trick. As he rounded the flat nose of the shuttle and looked up the boarding ramp, fully prepared for a trap, he found himself so surprised he could have been knocked over with a sneeze.

"What?" he cried in shock. "It's _you!_"

* * *

><p>Palpatine frowned as he entered the Palace detention center. Flanked on either side by his usual troupe of Royal Guards, he longed for nothing more at that moment than to Force hurl them all against the walls in frustration. He balled his hands into tight fists and gritted his teeth against such thoughts. While mindless violence would quench his bloodlust, it wouldn't bring back Kyle Katarn.<p>

He ordered his guards to stand back and stormed into Katarn's holding cell, which was filled with hushed conversation from several technicians, each working feverishly with datapads in hand. They were all huddled around the cell's viewscreen, various cables plugged into the computer's access ports. When the Emperor strode in, they all stiffened up to attention.

Ignoring their reaction, Palpatine demanded, "How did he do it?"

One of the technicians, a rugged woman with harsh, square features, and her hair tied back in a tight bun, answered first. "Your Majesty," she said in a thick Corellian accent, "it looks as though he had help from someone _inside_ the Palace."

"And have you determined who it is yet?" Palpatine inquired angrily.

She shook her head. "It appears someone has been communicating with him through this," she pointed at the console. "We've recovered several text messages sent on three separate occasions. We're attempting to trace their location of origin but it's difficult. Whoever it is, they have impressive computer slicing skills."

"I don't care about your opinion of their computer skills!" the Emperor fumed.

The woman's face drained of color. She sputtered a response. "I'm sorry, Your Highness."

"What did they speak about?"

She hesitated, afraid to anger him further. "We can only guess at this point, Your Majesty. We are assuming the person had control of the cell's holocams. Katarn would have likely spoken his responses aloud. We only have the text side of the conversations. It seems they were discussing a breakout."

Palpatine was growing angrier by the second. "Did they leave a name?"

Again, the technician shook her head. "They were reluctant to give their name. He did assign himself the moniker 'Ardy', though who that could be we really have no idea at the moment."

The old man's eyes widened in fury.

"Does that mean something to you, Your Majesty?" she asked, puzzled at the Emperor's reaction.

He didn't bother to answer. Instead, he spun around and flew out the door, ordering: "Bring the Princess' droids to the interrogation room immediately!" before disappearing around a corner.

Several minutes later, the tall golden droid See-Threepio shuffled through the door into the main interrogation room, looking more upset than he ever had in his long life of worry and paranoia. Palpatine sat at a short table and motioned for Threepio to sit opposite him. Once the droid had taken a seat, the room's harsh lights gleaming off his polished skin, Palpatine began. "Where is your counterpart?" he asked the protocol droid.

Though the room was meant to intimidate organics, Threepio fidgeted nervously in his seat nonetheless. "Artoo, Your Majesty?" he asked. "What has he done _now_? I tell you, he has _always_ had a knack for getting himself into trouble."

"I have reason to believe that he conspired with convicted Rebel Kyle Katarn and played an instrumental role in his escape from his detention cell twenty minutes ago." Palpatine locked eyes with the protocol droid. "I will ask you again: where is your counterpart, Artoo Deetoo?"

"He has really crossed the line this time!" Threepio's eyes flashed brightly in surprise; he jerked his hands up in the air in frustration. "I always knew he'd snap one day, the stupid little malfunction! Oh, dear. He hasn't _hurt_ anyone, has he?"

Palpatine raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You really knew nothing of this, did you?"

"Why, no, Your Majesty!" Threepio exclaimed. "If I had I certainly would have tried to talk him out of it! Who does he think he is, breaking a prisoner out of detention? I didn't even know he _knew_ Kyle Katarn."

"Has he acted suspiciously this last week?" the Emperor asked.

"Well, no, Your Highness. No more so than usual, anyway," Threepio responded. "He's always doing _something_ he shouldn't." Then he added, "Why, just the other day, he—"

"Yes?" the Emperor urged.

"Come to think of it, there have been several times lately that he's, well, _disappeared_," the golden droid said. "Only for short periods," he added quickly. "I assumed he had met an interesting computer."

"How often would he disappear?" Palpatine leaned forward. "How many times?"

Threepio tilted his head slightly to the side, briefly redirecting a beam of light into the Emperor's face as he thought. "Seven times that I recall, sir."

"Seven?" the Emperor asked, looking down at the table in confusion. "But technicians only recovered _three_ conversations before the escape…" he said to no one in particular. "So who was he communicating with the other four times?"

"Whoever it was, sir, he didn't mention it to _me_."

Palpatine looked up and shook his head. "Of course he didn't. He knew you wouldn't resist turning him in."

"I beg your—"

"Oh stop," the Emperor interrupted. "You have no concept of secrecy unless your master swears you to it. Even then, it is embarrassingly simple to trick you into regurgitating every last detail. Why do you think your memory was wiped after the Clone Wars and his wasn't? You can't be trusted with important information."

"Well—" Threepio started indignantly.

"Thank you for your time, Threepio," Palpatine cut in. "You are free to go."

The droid stood awkwardly. "You're most welcome, Your Majesty." He shuffled quickly out the door, servos whirring as he went.

When he was alone, Palpatine thought aloud, "Four times; he spoke to someone four times. But who? And more than that, where did they go? There was intent beyond escape here." Katarn had broken out just hours after the location of the Valley of the Jedi had been gleaned from his mind. "Is that it?" he wondered. "Could the droid have known?" If the astromech had control of the security cameras, it was entirely possible he had witnessed the Emperor extracting the information from Katarn's mind.

Even if he had, that still didn't explain who he had been talking to. The location of the Valley was useless information to ordinary people. Who else knew of its significance?

A disturbing thought entered the Emperor's mind. What if it was a Jedi? He remembered that Morgan Katarn had been associated with a Purge survivor. What if _he_ was who the droid had been talking to? He would surely have told it how important it was that the Sith not find it. What if he had somehow contacted the droid, whose memory had never been wiped after the Clone Wars and who the Sith knew still harbored Jedi sympathies? It made sense. He always knew the Jedi would never cease to be a thorn in his side. They were impossible to destroy completely. All it takes is _one_.

He couldn't rely on Lord Arisin to handle this one on his own. Powerful as he was, he had never been tested against an enemy truly intent on killing him. Vader's show on the Death Star had been pathetic. The boy was never in any real danger. But if he was right and there _was_ a surviving Jedi out there, his apprentice would be in danger. And he wasn't about to let another Skywalker fall to the blade of a Jedi.

He stood and swept through the doorway. "Alert Captain Kagi that I want my shuttle prepped for flight in ten minutes' time," he called to the guard as he passed by. He wasn't going to wait until he sensed his apprentice was in danger this time. This time, he would take care of it _himself_.


	5. Valley of the Jedi

**Chapter 5: Valley of the Jedi**

Jedi Master Qu Rahn sat cross-legged in his quarters, listening to the quiet hum of the hyperdrive engines aboard his ship, the _Klendathu. _He was deep in meditation, his thoughts focusing on the coming maelstrom. He knew he was heading into a battle the likes of which he had never known. Escaping his squad of clones on Sluis Van had been easy. What he was about to face was something else entirely.

For years he'd been searching for the fabled Valley of the Jedi at the insistence of Master Yoda, whom he'd discovered in exile on the far-flung swamp world of Dagobah. Several years ago, a vision had led him to a man, a simple farmer on Sulon. This farmer, Morgan Katarn, knew the coordinates of the planet; indeed, he knew the very _location_ of the Valley. But he refused to disclose it to the Jedi. The two had become friends and had remained close until Morgan's death at the hand of a former Jedi Master, called Jerec, who had turned to the Dark Side. Despite their friendly relationship, Morgan had never revealed the location of the Valley. He had always said that it was too dangerous a secret to risk falling in the wrong hands. He vowed that the secret would die with him. And up until very recently, Master Rahn feared that it had. That is, of course, until he'd gotten a most curious message.

"I am in the Imperial Palace," it had read. He still wasn't sure how it had found him. "Kyle Katarn is Palpatine's prisoner. He knows the location of the Valley of the Jedi."

He'd reread the message over and over again, sure it was a hoax. His better judgment told him not to trust it, but he couldn't help feeling his hope begin to rise. _Could it be?_ he'd wondered. _After all these years, could it really be true?_ The Force revealed no deceit behind the message. Whoever this was, they were either incredibly skilled at manipulating the Force or they truly believed they were telling the truth. For a long while, it was all that he thought about. The Valley had eluded him for so long and now, he was one step closer to finding it, long after he had given up hope of ever divining its location. Days later, however, his whole world came crashing down as his worst fears we realized.

"Palpatine knows."

Those two words had burned themselves into his memory. He read the short message so many times he wondered if it might not wipe off the screen entirely. He felt despair unlike anything he'd ever experienced, greater even than the execution of the Jedi at the end of the Clone Wars. If Palpatine knew the location of the Jedi then all was lost. The Emperor was the most powerful Sith Master in thousands of years, perhaps _ever_. And with Anakin Skywalker's son at his side…they would be unstoppable.

But just when he thought the galaxy was about to topple into Darkness forever, his ship's comm screen flashed an urgent message. It read, "I am escaping with Kyle Katarn within the hour." A set of coordinates appeared on the screen with no need for explanation. It was the Valley. And it was on Ruusan.

Of course! It was the site of the Seventh Battle, a place where hundreds of Jedi and Sith alike were all killed in one massive burst of Force energy. That sort of event left the Force traumatized, scarring it. In the case of the Valley, it had, like a singularity, sucked in all the Force power of those who died and held it indefinitely in one spot: the Nexus. Anyone who could harness the power of the Nexus would be unstoppable. He _had_ to get there first and find some way of releasing that energy before the Sith could use it to further corrupt the Force with the Dark Side.

Master Rahn had been hiding for years on Bestine IV, a little-known aquatic world, ironically the homeworld of the first settlers on Tatooine. Indeed, Tatooine's capital city was called Bestine in honor of this world, which was, in its own way, just as desolate and inhospitable. It was far removed from most of civilization, several days at least from Ruusan. However, with a little help from the Force, he _might_ just get there in time. Timing was critical. He needed to get there with ample time to free the trapped energies. He had no idea how powerful this new Skywalker was, but if he was even half as powerful as his father was, Rahn knew he would be outmatched. Moreover, if the Emperor himself were there…He'd rather not think about _that_. He knew the Emperor would be sending his fastest ships to secure the planet. This was going to be close.

The _Klendathu_'s intercom sprang to life, jarring Rahn out of his meditation.

"_Exiting hyperspace around Ruusan in approximately forty seconds, sir."_ The voice was that of Qu Rahn's droid companion, and only friend, N8-G7, or "Nate" for short. Nate was a reworked ZED Police Droid who was worth his weight in aurordium ore.

Rahn lazily opened his brown eyes and looked at the chrono on the wall. Excellent timing. He only hoped it was fast enough.

"On my way, Nate," he said in a naturally powerful voice. He stood and brushed the wrinkles out of his Jedi robe. They smelled a bit musty, having been stored away for the better part of twenty years. Like the lightsaber at his hip, they had been kept hidden to conceal his identity. They hadn't seen duty since the Clone Wars. Nevertheless, he feared that by the end of this, they would have seen a fair share more.

* * *

><p>"Your power is impressive, Lord Arisin." Kas'im stood, arms crossed, watching his first pupil in over a thousand years with awe in his eyes. "You say you've had no formal saber training?" The rate at which the young Sith was mastering each form was astonishing. It had been just two days since they left Lehon for Ruusan but already he was showing proficiency in the first four of the seven forms. Kas'im had to admit that Arisin's own personalized non-form was impressive in its own right. As a blademaster, he knew that sometimes a fighter's personal style could out-match a master of any of the seven traditional forms.<p>

"Thank you, Master Kas'im," Arisin said. "I was without a master for several years," he explained. "My training has been somewhat unorthodox." As he spoke, he executed a flawless and beautiful Makashi combination.

"Your execution of the seven forms is unique," the Twi'lek Sith Lord commented. "I notice that maneuvers ordinarily awkward for most are beautifully carried through." Kas'im stopped him for a moment. "Which is your dominant hand? I'm having trouble determining it."

Arisin smile as he plowed through a Djem So flourish, changing forms mid-move to finish in Ataru.

"I am naturally left-handed but began my training right-handed," Arisin told him.

Kas'im raised an eyebrow. "I see."

"The Emperor says that ambidexterity is an enormous advantage."

"Indeed, it is," Kas'im confirmed. "Lightsaber defense will be different depending on which hand your opponent uses more dominantly. If they switch hands frequently throughout the battle, you will have a very difficult time deflecting their blows. Pairing that with this ability you have to change styles so quickly and fluidly and you undermine your opponent's strategy and potentially take the victory."

"Do you foresee many lightsaber battles in my future, Master Kas'im?" Arisin asked with a touch of eagerness.

The blademaster gave an amused grin but his tone rang a touch more serious. "You can never be certain of anything," he said wisely. "The Jedi may be gone, but their light will never be extinguished. There will always be those who take up the blade against the Sith. Would you rather have the knowledge and never have to use it or find yourself confronted by a master swordsman and wishing you had taken the time to learn?"

"Wise words, Master Kas'im," Arisin said. "I of course choose the path of knowledge. Knowledge is power, is it not?"

Kas'im gave a microscopic nod. "Indeed." He uncrossed his arms. "Believe me, those words come from experience. Bane did not best me with the saber."

Arisin deactivated his blade with a descending _hissss_ and clipped it back to his belt. "How _did_ you die?" he inquired. "I found you buried in rubble. I was able to glean from your lightsabers that there had been a great battle."

Kas'im nodded. "It was. Bane fought furiously. But despite his considerable skill, I was still superior. I had taught him everything he knew, but not everything _I_ knew. However," he said with a sigh, "I concede that his knowledge and strength in the Force far surpassed my own. He knew the temple layout and directed us towards the entrance. I used the Force to shove him outside. It would have stunned anyone else. He retaliated with a powerful burst of his own. That in itself would have killed me had I not managed to shield myself. But the impact did to the stone what it could have done to me. The entire entrance collapsed on top of me. I died almost instantly.

"You see, even though I was greater with the blade," he instructed, "he still had the advantage."

Arisin nodded. "You once told him that a skilled blademaster could overcome someone stronger in the Force," the younger Sith pointed out.

Kas'im bared his sharp teeth in what could have been a grin or a sneer.

"I did, yes," Kas'im admitted, "But while my mastery of the blade surpassed his mastery of the Force, his greater knowledge of his surroundings gave him the advantage. In close quarters, I would have killed him. He couldn't risk offensive Force powers without bringing the temple down on himself, too. So he used his advantage to lead us to where he _could_ use the Force safely."

Arisin had sat down and was listening intently. "So what would you say was your downfall? What would you do differently?"

The Twi'lek Sith Lord thought on it a moment before answering. "I suppose it was my overwhelming confidence that my abilities were enough to secure a win. There was no doubt in my mind that I would win. I hadn't even considered his considerable skills in the art of subtle manipulation. If I had to do it again, I believe I would be more wary of my surroundings. Ignorance is death. As is overconfidence."

"Overconfidence," Arisin said with a bemused laugh. "I once told Master Sidious that overconfidence would be _his_ downfall."

Kas'im sighed. "Regrettably, it has been the downfall of a great _many_ Sith over the centuries."

"So," Arisin began, "the lesson would be to never allow yourself to be too confident."

Kas'im shook his head. "No, the lesson is to never underestimate your opponent," he corrected. "No matter how you envision the battle turning out, it can _always_ change. Never celebrate victory until your enemy lies dead at your feet."

Arisin nodded in understanding, soaking up the priceless advice he was receiving.

"You're very wise, Kas'im. The sort of wisdom that transcends generations."

Kas'im bowed in humble thanks, his lekku swinging free of their resting places. "You have much wisdom yourself, Lord Arisin. Wisdom far beyond your years." He added, "And you didn't have to die first in order to gain it."

"I attribute that to my master," Arisin told him. "He has allowed me free access to the greatest knowledge in the galaxy."

"He must trust you a great deal, then," Kas'im said carefully. "To trust you with such knowledge, I mean."

Darth Arisin nodded. "He has no reason not to. My ambitions don't involve usurping his throne. What I desire he gives freely. He's been more of a father to me these last few months than anyone has my whole life. He doesn't lie to me, he doesn't hold me back. He is allowing me to become everything I can be." He shrugged. "Besides, since he _doesn't_ hold me back, what would be the advantage to killing him? I certainly don't know how to run a galaxy. If anything, killing him would burden me with responsibilities I don't want."

Kas'im nodded. "A valid point." A long pause followed; the rhythmic pulsing of the hyperdrive engines thrummed through the ship. Finally, Kas'im spoke again. "Let's continue your training, shall we?"

Lord Arisin nodded and ignited his blade.

* * *

><p>Darth Sidious gnashed his teeth in anger, his eyes betraying the murder in his heart. He was through playing games with Katarn. This time he would die and he would <em>stay<em> dead. Sidious saw no point in keeping the Rebel alive any longer. He had already proven that he would never turn to the Dark Side and become a Hand.

Sidious' eyes softened some when they fell upon the object he held gingerly in his hands. He traced his old weathered fingers gently over its smooth lines, feeling the cool metal against his skin. Lifting it up, comforted by its familiar weight, he inspected it. One side of it was scratched and dinted from a long fall, a battle scar from long ago. Its graceful lines and polished finish were otherwise unmarred. He held a hand to his face, likewise scarred in that momentous battle. It was as if he and his weapon had been symbiotic partners, whatever happened to one happened to the other. He studied his reflection in the polished electrum and phrik alloy. The juxtaposition of the silver and gold metals, worked into a soft organic design, made it a weapon as beautiful as it was deadly, a true piece of art.

He viewed the lightsaber as he would an old friend. Though rarely used, it was as much a part of him as the Force. It was an extension of his will, of his very body. He had several identical spares in various locations around Coruscant, but the one he held had special meaning to him. It was the first built with that design. It had been constructed on Korriban following the death of his Master. It was present at the fall of the Jedi Order. This weapon had history. And it was about to make some more.

"You shall see service once more," he whispered to it, infusing it with his anticipation. Jedi blood would soon be spilled once again.

* * *

><p>Kyle still couldn't believe that a lone astromech droid had managed to break him out of his cell in the Imperial Palace. Though, if the stories the little droid had told him were to be believed, this harrowing rescue was far from his greatest feat.<p>

Luke Skywalker's droid was known throughout the Alliance for its unparalleled bravery and ingenuity, but even with its reputation preceding it, Katarn could scarcely believe the fantastic tales he'd been told: from dangerous Clone Wars missions with his former master, Darth Vader himself, to the infamous "rescue" mission above Coruscant to save the soon-to-be Emperor Palpatine from the CIS. If it was to be believed, this droid had seen more action than many GAR platoons had.

He shook his head. He'd never known a droid to exaggerate before. And he'd _certainly_ never found one capable of lying. If it was all true, he couldn't imagine a better partner on this mission.

* * *

><p>A little light flashed on the hyperdrive console, followed by a beeping alert. The ship dropped out of light-speed. They had arrived.<p>

Mara swung the bow of the _Jade Sabre_ around one hundred and eighty degrees to starboard and landed the ship with just the slightest of jolts. Rain lashed at the hull, generating a steady, dull roar.

The fiery haired Emperor's Hand flipped the comm switch. "We're here, Princess. You ready to kill us a Zeltron?"

"_That's an affirmative,"_ Leia answered back. _"We're all ready back here."_

Mara stood and made her way back to the main cabin. She saw the two Noghri inspecting their vicious curved blades. Leia emerged from the 'fresher and met Mara's gaze.

"It's raining like springtime on Kamino out there," Mara commented. "Fortunately, sensors show the storm'll pass in a few hours." She sighed. "_Unfortunately_, that's about _all_ our sensors show. The terrain for hundreds of kilometers is laced with high concentrations of xeroite. A hundred creds say that's why Breyac chose this site in the first place." She shook her head, her red hair bouncing with the movement. "Looks like we're doing this the old-fashioned way."

"Wonderful," Leia breathed, giving a long sigh. "Is it just me or does it seem like we're almost not supposed to get this guy?"

"It's not just you, Princess," Mara admitted. "It officially feels like _something_ is conspiring against us. Breyac is one lucky barve, I'll give him that."

Leia gave Mara a tired look. "I wonder what the Force has in store for us next."

Mara shrugged. "Whatever it is, we'll deal with it. We're not exactly amateurs here, you know."

Leia rubbed her head. "Does something feel _odd_ to you?" she asked. "This whole area…it _tingles_."

"Now that you mention it…,"Mara started. "A lot of Jedi and Sith died here. That sort of thing leaves a psychic imprint for a long time."

Leia shook her head. "It doesn't _feel_ like death. It feels like…," she thought about it a moment, choosing her words carefully, "…like _power_. Raw, pulsating, _living_ power. Can't you feel it?"

Mara took a deep breath and closed her eyes, stretching out with the Force. Suddenly she let out a little gasp.

"Stars' End!" she exclaimed. "I see what you mean! That's incredible. The only time I've ever felt _that_ much power concentrated in one place was in the presence of the Emperor."

"It couldn't be a person, could it?" Leia asked. "It doesn't feel coherent enough to be a person."

"I don't know," Mara said with a shrug. "All I know is it's _big_."

"I know it's not our mission, but I'd like to find out what it is if we can," Leia said. "At the very least make a note of it for the Emp—"

Mara's face suddenly adopted a curious expression that made Leia stop mid-word. "What are you doing?"

"Huh," Mara said, looking very confused. "I think the Emperor already knows," she said slowly.

"What makes you say that?"

"Because," Mara said, perplexed, "the Emperor is on his way."

Leia cocked her head to the side. "Oh. Huh."

"Yeah," Mara said. "Ditto."

"So I guess we just wait, then? Does he know we're here, too?" Leia asked.

Mara nodded. "He does now. Get this: he's coming here for the Valley of the Jedi."

Leia wrinkled her brow. "Okay, history buff, what's the Valley of the Jedi?"

Mara proceeded to explain the legend.

"Well," Leia said once Jade had finished, "it would certainly explain that power we felt."

"Yeah, it would." Mara shook her head. "Something just feels off, though."

"How do you mean?"

"Well think about it. The Emperor discovers the Valley on a planet almost no one remembers and even fewer can actually get to. What's the rush?"

Leia shrugged. "I don't know. You think someone else is after it, too?"

"But who?" Mara asked. "I mean, who else has use for it?"

"A Jedi might," Leia offered. "Or at the very least, someone who knows its potential who doesn't want Palpatine getting control of it."

As much as she hated to admit it, Leia's theory had merit.

"You think the vigo knows about it?" Leia asked.

"No," Mara shook her fiery mane. "I doubt it. I think he picked Ruusan for its remoteness, not its history. He's not a Force-sensitive. What use would he have for the Valley?"

Leia nodded in agreement. "All the same, maybe we should find him fast."

"Agreed," Mara said, nodding her head. "And I'm thinking we should hold him until the Emperor gets here."

"What? Why?"

Mara shrugged. "I just think after everything the vigo's done, the Emperor would want to deal with Breyac himself. I know I would."

Leia mulled it over a minute. "I guess," she said finally. "But if he's angry, I'm blaming _you_. But first, we have to _find_ him."

"Right," Mara said. "And, uh," she hesitated, "I think we should use the Noghri."

Leia gave a little scoff. "Oh really? _You_?"

"Yeah. I figure they could, I don't know, sniff him out or something," Mara said sheepishly. "At this point, we ought to use every advantage we have. I'm tired of this guy getting the best of us."

"How will the Noghri sniff him out in the weather?"

"I don't know," Mara shrugged. "It couldn't hurt to ask, though." She reached over and opened the ship-wide. "Kay and Drey to the cockpit, please."

"I hope you know what you're doing," Leia said, crossing her arms as she sat down.

"Me, too," Mara said as the Noghri filed in. "Alright, guys," she began.

"You need us, Lady Vader?" Kay interrupted.

Leia suppressed a laugh and Mara scoffed.

"Hey, furball, _I'm_ talking to you," Mara snapped, jabbing a thumb at herself.

"_We_ need your help," Leia said.

"We are at your service," said Kay.

"What do you command of us?" Drey asked.

Leia nodded to Mara. "Tell them."

The Noghri shifted their attention to the red-haired woman. "Oh, is it my turn to speak now?" She asked bitterly.

"Mara, just tell them."

Mara sighed. "We need you guys to see if you can track our vigo. Sniff him out. Think you can do it?"

As one, the Noghri turned their heads to look out the viewport at the pouring rain then at each other. "We have tracked under worse conditions," one of them said. "Do you have something of his for us to glean a scent from?"

"Uh," Mara's mouth dropped open and she looked to Leia. "Well," she started, "we never actually touched him. Or were anywhere near him physically."

"And we didn't think to take anything of his with us," Leia added. "He's a Zeltron," she said weakly. "You know, if that helps."

Drey moved like lightning, grabbing a handful of Mara's flame-red hair and inhaling deeply.

"Hey!" Mara cried. "Get your kreffing hands off me!"

Kay approached and grabbed his own handful of Mara's hair, likewise giving it a big sniff.

Mara looked at Leia. "A little help here!"

Leia gave Mara a sympathetic look but said, "I think this is part of the process."

"You recently ingested Corellian fire whiskey," Kay said.

Drey shook his head. "Imitation."

"What?" Mara yelled. "I paid ten creds for that!" She growled. "_Now_ I'm steamed!"

Leia rolled her eyes. "Mara, focus!"

Mara shot her a venomous look. "You try focusing when you've got two Noghri nesting in your hair." She turned her head to try to look at Drey. "So…are we finding anything, boys, or are you just trying to make an already bad day worse? Did the Princess put you up to this?"

"There may be something there," Drey said. "Very faint. We can make no promises in this rain."

"But if we are near," Kay said, "we may be able to track him."

"There is a faint chemical odor here," Drey said, sniffing the hair again. "I have smelled this before." He motioned for Kay to sniff again.

Kay nodded. "Yes, I agree. Do you remember the last time our noses were offended by this?"

"Hey!" Mara yelled, feeling insulted. "So I haven't had a chance to wash up in a few days! I have other priorities!"

"I don't think it's you, Mara," Leia told her.

"Indeed," Drey said. "This is very faint, but unmistakable. The last time we encountered this scent was in the presence of Vigo Breyac." The Noghri released Mara's hair. "I believe it is his hair product."

Mara was rubbing her head where the two Noghri had pulled her hair. "Oh yeah," Mara said as she brushed her hair down. "His hair looked frozen in carbonite. Definite product usage. Can you track it in the rain?"

Drey hesitated. "The chemical will not break down but it still will not be easy."

Leia stood. "Then let's get started."

After several wet, miserable hours, the troupe returned to the ship feeling defeated.

"We are deeply sorry, Lady Vader. We have failed you." Water dripped from Kay's lower jaw onto the _Sabre_'s deck.

Leia put a hand on the Noghri's shoulder. "Don't worry about it, guys. It was a long shot to begin with. Besides, we're probably just in the wrong place. Chances are he didn't hike to his hideout. His scent trail won't cover much ground. We just need to move to a new location and try again."

Mara stood silent, dripping muck on the scuffed cockpit floor, looking absolutely miserable.

"Ready to go, Red?" Leia gave her a faint smile. "Come on, that mudhole wasn't _that_ deep. At least your hair's still red."

Mara swore loudly as she sat at the helm and started the engines. "Just once I'd like _you_ to be the one stepping in it."

"Maybe next time," Leia quipped as she stepped up behind her.

"So where are we supposed to go now?" Mara sighed.

Leia gave her a shrug. "Is there any way to narrow down the search area? He's been here for too long to follow an ion trail so we'll have to use logic."

Mara shook her head, spraying the console with large droplets of water. "There's xeroite veins running through the whole area. It messes with the sensors."

Leia cocked her head to the side. "What if we used _that_?"

"That's…not a bad idea, Princess."

"We look for what _isn't_ there," Leia said.

"Right," Mara agreed, nodding her head. "He'll probably be near the highest concentration in the area. All we have to do is fly around and look for the areas with the strongest interference."

"At the very least," Leia added, "it'll give our boys somewhere to start sniffing."

"Yeah," Mara said, "sounds like a good plan."

Leia sat herself in the co-pilot's chair as Mara raised the ship and swung it out over the forest, taking it in a wide arc that covered at least four kilometers.

"I'm extending our sensor range," Leia said. "Should make it easier to see the pockets of interference." She adjusted the sensor controls. "I've set the upper limit at ten klicks. Should give us a decent map of the ore deposits in the area."

Mara nodded. "Look at that one," she said, pointing to a large section of static on the screen. "That has to be at least three klicks long. And look at that concentration. It completely blinds the sensors in some places."

Leia checked the rest of the screen. "It's the largest vein in the area," she confirmed. "If I were setting up a safehouse in this area, that's where _I'd_ do it."

The engines of the _Jade Sabre_ roared as Mara punched the throttle. Leia was shoved back in her seat as the inertial damper struggled to compensate for the sudden acceleration.

"You can run, Vigo, but you can't hide," Mara said as she steered the ship toward the huge ore deposit. "We're coming for you."

* * *

><p>Kyle Katarn looked out the viewport at the mottled bluegreen orb floating serenely in space before him: Ruusan. He could scarcely believe such a beautiful sight could harbor such a dark and bloodstained past. A thousand years before, he would have looked out at the same space and seen a very different view.

The planet's upper atmosphere would be full of warships blasting each other into oblivion. Jedi and Sith would be locked in mortal combat in the corridors of boarded ships. Starfighters would be exploding in expanding clouds of vapor and shrapnel.

If he looked at the planet itself, he would see smoke-choked skies as huge swaths of forest burned with the fires ignited by downed ships crashing through the atmosphere into the lush green surface. Smoke would have encircled the world, turning the skies a muddy brown, blotting out the sun for days at a time and choking anyone on the ground with ash and the pungent smell of burned wood. It would be a horrific sight to behold, an even worse one to experience first-hand.

But jump forward a millennium and the debris is gone, the forests have grown back, and the scars have faded. Except for the Valley. In the Valley was a cave, the same cave where Kaan and the Brotherhood of Darkness had lured Hoth and his Jedi to their deaths. Everyone who entered that cave had died, Jedi and Sith alike, so different in life but sharing the same fate in the end. The Force has no bias. It erased them _all_. And in doing so, it left a scar that even time was powerless to heal. In the cave, on that day, the Force itself was damaged, was torn. That fateful day left behind a nexus of power, a singularity into which all those who died when Kaan's thought-bomb went off were drawn. A single point where the Force power of hundreds of Jedi and Sith consolidated and merged, becoming one. If a person were to tap into that power, that nexus, they could become virtually unstoppable.

Kyle shook his head, trying not to imagine the Emperor getting his hands on such a powerful weapon. He _had_ to get to it before the Sith did.

He turned away to look at his co-pilot. "Any other ships in the system?"

The little astrodroid gave a string of twittles, which scrolled across the screen in Basic: NONE. HIGH CONCENTRATIONS OF XEROITE ORE MAKING SENSOR READINGS UNRELIABLE ON SECTIONS OF THE PLANET'S SURFACE. SOMEONE COULD ALREADY BE THERE AND WE WOULDN'T KNOW.

"Great," Kyle scoffed. "Can you pilot us to the Valley? I need to go make sure I'm armed to the teeth. And then arm _those_."

Artoo gave an affirmative beep and Kyle made his way into the passenger compartment. The passenger cabin in a _Lambda_ was cramped, which made gearing up difficult. He strapped on heavy body armor over his chest, thighs, and back. He doubled up on the mesh combat suit meant to protect from projectiles and blades.

From an overhead compartment, he retrieved a large disruptor rifle and checked its charge before slinging it over his shoulder. He reached up, took out two blaster pistols, and secured them in their holsters on either hip. Finally, he slipped out a box from beneath one of the passenger seats. Flipping open the lid, he inspected the contents: three fist-sized concussion grenades and a white cylinder with several unmarked buttons running down its length. To a trained eye like his, it was a standard issue Imperial stormtrooper's thermal detonator, usually secured to the armor at the base of the trooper's back. He attached all four explosives to his person, immediately feeling the effect of their added weight on his belt. He looked down at himself; every spare centimeter of him had been dedicated to something lethal. He absently wondered just how that little droid had managed to pull together so much firepower. He must've raided the detention center's lockup.

He leaned his head into the cockpit, his gear preventing him from entering. "Are we almost there?" He glanced out the viewport and saw…exactly what was there before. Ruusan still hung motionless dead ahead right where it was before he left. They hadn't moved at all.

"Hey!" he yelled angrily. "What's going on? Why haven't you taken us down yet?" He leaned forward and squinted to read the scrolling text. "What do you mean we're waiting for someone?"

Artoo answered.

"A _Jedi_? We're meeting a Jedi? Who?" Artoo twittled again and Kyle watched as the answer typed itself. "A friend of my father's. And just when are we supposed to meet them?"

The shuttle shuddered as lights started flashing on the main console. Kyle heard magnetic clamps sealing over the shuttle's rear access hatch. He spun round and drew the blasters at his hips. Then he ducked behind a row of seats and waited for whoever it was to enter the cabin.

Moments later, a droid Kyle recognized as a ZED police droid came lumbering down the center aisle. As far as Kyle could tell, the droid was unarmed. He stood and drew a bead on the droid's head. "Hold it right there, tinman."

Before he could react, the pistols were ripped from his grip by some unseen force and thrown across the cabin into the rear of the shuttle. A moment later, a dark skinned Human male, perhaps in his mid-fifties, stepped into the cabin holding the blasters by the barrels. He was dressed in simple robes and a lightsaber hung from his modest leather belt. "I believe these are yours," he said, tossing the pistols back to Kyle one at a time. "I'm sorry about that, but I couldn't have you shooting Nate here." The Jedi nodded to the droid.

"You're the Jedi who knew my father?" Kyle asked bluntly.

The Jedi nodded. "Yes, Kyle. My name is Qu Rahn. I met your father many years ago. We were good friends. I miss him a great deal."

"He never mentioned having a Jedi friend," Kyle said, his training and recent experiences with the Emperor's psychic invasion made him suspicious of just about everything.

"You were a stormtrooper. Your kind killed mine. Why should he tell _you_?" Qu Rahn raised an eyebrow. "Besides, you two had grown apart. You didn't speak very often. Did you tell him of every friend _you_ had?"

"Point taken," Kyle submitted. "Alright, so you knew my father. How did you know we'd be _here_?"

Artoo rolled into the cabin from the cockpit.

"You would be my mystery contact, I presume," Qu Rahn said, smiling at the little droid.

Kyle scoffed. "Don't bother talking to him. He doesn't speak Basic."

The Jedi Master stepped forward and patted his own droid's shoulder. "But Nate here _does_. He can interpret for us, can't you, Nate?"

The droid looked quizzically at his master. "Yes, sir. You know I can." It never ceased to amaze Kyle just how much attitude and personality a droid could develop over time. As far as he was concerned, a droid should have its memory wiped every six months to avoid just that. Who needed a vacuum that could talk back?

Qu Rahn just laughed. "You'll have to excuse Nate. We don't interact with other people very often."

"Right," said Kyle, still unsure about them. "So what now?"

"We take the _Klendathu_ down to the surface and hope to get to the nexus before the Emperor."

"And what are we supposed to do once we get there? I mean, I've spent some quality time with the Emperor lately. He could kill us all without breaking a sweat. How are we supposed to defend the Valley against him?"

Qu Rahn shrugged. "I am placing my faith in the Force."

Kyle sighed. "Great."

"You'd do well to trust in the Force yourself, son," the Jedi said. "It's gotten me out of more scrapes than I can count or care to admit. It got your father out of some tough spots, too."

Kyle gritted his teeth. "Yeah," he said, his voice filling with anger, "you wanna know where else it got Dad? It got him _killed_. Thanks to your Force, a Jedi cut his head off. So you'll forgive me if I trust _myself_ over the Force."

Qu Rahn sighed and shook his head. "Jerec was no longer a Jedi when he killed Morgan. And," he added, "like it or not, it's your Force, too."

Kyle shook his head. "No, I'm doing this for my father and because even I know how bad it would be if the Emperor got his wrinkled hands on this power. But after we're done, _I'm_ done. If we make it through this, I don't want to have anything to do with the Force. I've seen what it can do, felt it, and I don't want it."

"You can't deny your own destiny," the Jedi said angrily. "There are too few of us left. We need _everyone_ with the power if we're to rebuild the Order and destroy the Sith."

"What makes you think you even can?" Kyle argued. "He nearly wiped you out when there were _thousands_ of you. He's more powerful than you can imagine. How many of you are there? A few dozen? A hundred? It's not enough. He'll just laugh as your charred corpses fall at his feet. You'll just make it that much easier to finish the job he started two decades ago."

Qu Rahn stood silently, patiently taking Kyle's outburst. Finally he said, "You must have hope, Kyle."

"Wrong," Kyle said. "Look where hope got us. We placed our hope in a man who conquered his own people. We placed our hope in an Order that was annihilated with the snap of a finger. We placed our hope in a boy who looked to deliver us from the oppression of the Empire only to turn on us in our most critical time. So tell me, Master Jedi, why, after all of that, must I have hope? What has hope gotten me?"

"To give up on hope is to go down without a fight."

Kyle's face reddened with anger. "Go down without a fight?" he roared. "I have been fighting for the last four kreffing years! I have been at _war_! And you know what? The war is over. We lost! I had hope, Jedi, but it was taken away from me the moment Endor was destroyed and Luke Skywalker sided with the Emperor."

Qu Rahn started to take a step towards Kyle, who just said, "Don't."

"I understand why you've become disheartened," Qu Rahn said. "I think you forget that I, too, was betrayed. Anakin Skywalker was a hero. Despite what many Jedi felt about him, he was. And when he betrayed us, I felt like giving up, too. I felt that if a Jedi as loyal and dedicated to the Order as Anakin could give in to the Dark Side, could murder those whom he considered friends, then all that was worth fighting for was lost. And many surviving Jedi feel that way to this very day. They have given up. But I came to realize that you can _never_ stop fighting for what's right. You are obligated to do everything in your power to end oppression and suffering. If the Force flows through your veins, it is your _duty_ to train as a Jedi."

"No," Kyle said shaking his head. "I'm not obligated to do anything. I've made my contribution. I've shed my blood and my sweat and I have taken lives, _thousands_ of lives, and I lost. So I'm through. I'm cutting my losses and going home. After this, if I survive, I'm done."

"Fine," Qu Rahn said softly. "We need to go now. The Emperor could arrive any minute."

Without another word, they all made their way aboard the _Klendathu_ and descended through the atmosphere toward what could be their end.

* * *

><p>"We're coming up on Ruusan," Arisin said. The deceased Sith Lord Kas'im stood over his shoulder, watching as the stars reverted to stationary pinpricks. As the shuttle returned to realspace, the planet rushed toward them and stopped dead, filling the entire viewport with its verdant presence.<p>

"Sensors show another ship in orbit," Kas'im said, pointing to the display. "Its configuration looks very similar to this one but with a few variations."

"It's a _Lambda_," Arisin confirmed. "Someone else is here."

"The vessel seems derelict," Kas'im said, reading off the sensor data. "It has power but appears to be free floating."

"I'm not detecting any lifesigns," Arisin reported. "Whoever came in that shuttle isn't there anymore."

"That would imply a third-party," Kas'im noted.

Arisin nodded. "Sensors pick up an ion trail leading to and from the shuttle and heading planetward. It's fresh, within the half hour judging by the dissipation level."

"Then might I suggest we make haste?"

"Yeah," Arisin agreed. "I think that's a good idea."

The shuttle's engines roared as the ship accelerated toward the planet at a stunning velocity.

"Uh," Kas'im opened his mouth. "Aren't you going in a little hot? You don't even have your shields raised!"

Arisin grinned but didn't answer. Instead, he pushed the throttle even further. Within seconds, the shuttle hit the atmosphere at a blinding speed that would have vaporized any other ship. There was a flash of fire as super compressed air heated up and ignited into a bubble of plasma wrapping the shuttle in a white-hot cocoon. The vessel's aerodynamic profile sliced through the atmosphere like a hot knife through blue butter. The flight cabin rattled with minimal turbulence but the sound of air rushing past the ship was deafening.

Kas'im couldn't believe it. "What is this ship made of?" he asked. "You slammed into the atmosphere hard enough to blast apart our atoms and you did it completely unshielded!"

The ship broke dramatically through the thick cloud cover and into a violent but quickly dispersing thunderstorm. Even over the engines, the sound of rain sizzling on the superheated skin of the shuttle could be heard.

"The hull is constructed from a molecularly strengthened quantum laminate armor," Arisin explained as he piloted toward the Valley. "This ship can withstand a direct shot from the Death Star."

"The what?" Kas'im asked. "What is a Death Star?"

Arisin had to laugh. He kept forgetting Kas'im hadn't been around for a thousand years. "Nevermind that. I'm told the only thing capable of destroying this armor is the extreme gravity of a black hole. And even _that_ is just theoretical."

"So you've created an invincible material and decided the best application for it is the hull of a shuttle?" the Twi'lek asked incredulously.

"Well," Arisin said, "it's the _Emperor's_ shuttle."

"Yes, that makes the application _much_ more responsible than if it were for combat armor or something equally useful." Kas'im didn't bother masking his disdain.

The younger Sith Lord turned around in his seat. "Soldiers are expendable. The Emperor is not."

Kas'im raised an eyebrow. "Fair enough."

Arisin turned back to his screens. "We're about fifty kilometers out from the coordinates I was given. There's some strange interference though. It's messing with long-range scanners." The rain had stopped and the clouds seemed to be dispersing. Ahead of them, sunlight broke through in huge slanting rays.

"Someone is jamming us?" Kas'im said.

"No," Arisin shook his head. "It seems natural. I'm reading xeroite. Lots of it. It's laced throughout the whole area." He sighed. "I won't be able to rely on my instruments for much longer."

"How fortunate that you do not need them," Kas'im said in his teacher voice.

Arisin grinned. "Absolutely."

As Kas'im watched the forest and hills fly below them in a green blur, something suddenly caught his attention. He gasped. "Do you feel that?" he asked. "The power. It's incredible."

Arisin nodded. "It has to be the Valley. We're close now. I can sense it—"

"What is it?"

"Leia," Arisin whispered.

"Leia? Who is Leia?"

"My sister," Arisin answered. "She's here. And she's in trouble."

"What are you going to do, Lord Arisin?" Kas'im inquired cautiously.

Arisin didn't answer right away.

"Darth Arisin, what are your plans for the situation?" Kas'im asked again, this time putting a hard edge on his tone.

"She can handle herself," Arisin said finally. "My priority is the Valley."

Kas'im smiled behind Arisin's back. "Very good. If she is half as powerful as you are, she'll be fine."

"We're twins," Arisin said. "She's an agent of the Emperor. She wouldn't be off Coruscant unless he felt she was ready." Despite his confident words, he couldn't help worrying about her. He knew someone was already here, probably for the Valley. What if it was a Jedi? And what if Leia had run afoul of this Jedi? He shook his head, putting the thoughts out of his mind. He had to trust in her abilities and focus on the task at hand.

* * *

><p>Mara and Leia were huddled behind a tree stump that was slowly being eaten away by the continuous blaster fire spewing from several defense turrets hidden in the dense forest.<p>

"Well," Mara said, "I think it's safe to say we're close."

"Why? He could have defenses like this spread over the whole area." Leia winced as charred wood rained down on her.

Mara shook her head. "This is a _secret_ facility." When it was clear she wasn't getting her point across, she hastily explained. "Heavy defenses would give away the position of the safehouse. You're wandering through the woods and someone starts firing at you, you know there's something someone doesn't want you to find. Might make you look harder for that something. But the vigo is smarter than that," she said, wincing as a large piece of the tree stump dislodged and fell to the ground. "I'm betting this is his end-game line of defense, meant to kill anything that makes it this far. If I had to guess," she smiled, "I'd say we're _literally_ right on top of him."

Leia looked down at the leaf-strewn ground. "You mean…"

Mara nodded. "Oh, yeah." She reached out with the Force, directing her senses downward. To her satisfaction, less than a meter below them was a very prominent void. Whether natural or artificial she couldn't tell, but there was _something_ down there. She reached onto her belt, unclipped her lightsaber, and activated it, plunging it up to the hilt into the damp soil.

"What the hell are you doing?" Leia yelled over the barrage, startled by Mara's sudden and unexpected action. Kay and Drey watched from behind a nearby rock, looking frustrated that they couldn't assist their clearly distressed mistress.

Mara didn't answer; she was cutting a two-meter wide circle in the forest floor, the wet leaves and dirt sizzling against the blade. The smell of burned rock mixed with the wood smoke pouring from the quickly disappearing tree stump that served as their only protection against the still unseen turret system.

"Whatever you're doing, do it fast! We're running out of cover!" Leia cried out as another section of the stump succumbed to the blaster fire.

"Almost through," Mara said through gritted teeth, struggling to push the magenta blade through the thick soil. With a triumphant yell, she sliced through the last centimeter and the whole thing fell into an open space, followed by a resounding crash. "Alright, Princess. Hop in."

Leia smiled. She couldn't help but to think back to her escape from the first Death Star detention level by blasting a hole in a garbage chute and giving her companions a similar order. Without hesitation, she unclipped her lightsaber and hopped feet first in the hole.

Once Leia had disappeared into the dark, Mara looked across at the Noghri. "Alright, guys. Your turn."

They looked at one another, sharing some silent moment. Then, like two gray blurs, they leapt one after the other across the several meter gap and landed gracefully beside Mara. Like furry gray serpents, they slithered down into the darkness after Leia. Flashing a smirk to no one in particular, Mara lowered herself in and dropped down into the unknown.

* * *

><p>Palpatine stared back at his reflection in the mirror of the shuttle's small refresher unit. He had shed his usual heavy robes for looser, more practical attire, similar in design to those once favored by his first apprentice, Darth Maul. Made from a light, flowing material, they wouldn't weigh him down in battle or restrict his movement. Against an ordinary foe, the Force was all he needed. But against a potential Jedi Master, he would need to keep his options open. Lord Arisin had once told him that overconfidence was his weakness. Perhaps the boy's words had merit. He wasn't taking any chances, not this close to complete victory.<p>

His hood was lowered, affording him a rare glance at his entire exposed head. His once auburn hair, full and healthy, now lay wispy and white like a thin helmet upon his head. His grotesque face stared back at him pallid and wrinkled, clammy to the touch like some long dead thing. The skin around his eyes was red and swollen and the deep crevices along either side of his mouth gave him a permanent scowl. Thick bulbous growths on his forehead made him look like something inhuman, bloated and ugly. Deep-set eyes stared out from this horribly disfigured face.

The man in the mirror looked old and weak. Except for those eyes. Over the years, they had faded to a sickly watery yellow but over the course of the last few hours, they had flared back to a vibrant gold and blood red, a result of his renewed hatred of the Jedi. He bared his crooked teeth at himself, glaring at his own ruined flesh as fresh anger swelled within him. Just as Obi-Wan Kenobi had cost Lord Vader his body, so had Mace Windu cost Darth Sidious his. There were times when his deformities came as an advantage, but there were others when the face of Palpatine from some old poster, public address, or documentary mocked him, igniting a spark of vanity deep inside of him that would haunt him for days.

He rubbed a hand over his face and for a moment, the skin smoothed; it turned a healthy pink. Even the roots of his hair regained some of their former color. But as soon as it began, it reversed back to its hideous, mutilated state. Sidious scoffed. Something the Jedi did to him that night (or maybe something he'd done to _himself_) had left him incapable of restoring his appearance for any length of time. He'd tried on many occasions to repair his features, not caring how he would explain his sudden rejuvenation, but to no avail. This was a blemish that just couldn't be covered up. Even surgery couldn't do much for him. So he kept it, sometimes proud to wear it, most times disgusted by it.

He went to raise his hood but stopped himself. If he found his _own_ face that unsettling, it might just do to take that into battle, to use it to set his enemies in an uneasy state from the beginning.

The shuttle landed with a heavy jolt, nearly knocking him off his feet. Allowing himself one last look in the mirror, he checked that his lightsaber was secure in its sleeve holster and set off into the forest to ensure he didn't lose _another_ apprentice to the bloody Jedi.

* * *

><p>As Mara's eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw the two Noghri already busy securing the area, which appeared to be some sort of access tunnel she guessed was used for maintenance. It smelled of mold and wet soil; the floor was damp and slick with algae. It looked like it hadn't been used in years.<p>

"So which way do you think?" Leia asked, stepping into the circle of light shining down through the hole Mara had cut. Above, the turrets had gone still, their targets no longer registering on their sensors.

Mara nodded in a direction. "That way. Towards the turret system. They didn't want us going there so that's exactly where we're going."

"The tunnel is clear for at least one hundred meters in this direction," said one of the Noghri, emerging silently from the dark.

"I report the same for this direction," the other one said, approaching from the opposite end.

"Great," Mara said. "Shall we go?" She grabbed a glowstick from her belt and took the lead. "Princess, stay behind me. Noghri, if you could cover our tails, please."

"Lady Vader?" Kay asked.

Leia nodded. The two aliens took up points behind them, their wicked blades drawn and ready for anything.

"I really wish they'd stop doing that." Mara gave Leia a sour look.

Leia held up her hands in mock defense. "Hey," she said, "you're the one who counted on their undying loyalty to my lineage."

"Doesn't make it any less annoying," Mara muttered under her breath as she continued to lead the way.

Leia smirked. "So how far do you think we are from him? Close?"

"Breyac?" Mara asked. "Yeah, _real_ close. We were never supposed to get this far, hence the desperate overkill turret system up there," she said with a nod upwards. They were passing just under the turrets now, judging by the heavy power cables running along the walls which took abrupt ninety degree turns upwards into the ceiling every several meters.

"He has to know we're here by now."

"Probably," Mara said. "But I'm betting he thinks his little defense grid will be enough to take care of us."

"All the same," Leia said, "we should have a backup plan. He outsmarted us once. Let's not underestimate him again. I really don't want to keep chasing him from one side of the galaxy to the other."

"Already do."

Leia raised an eyebrow. "We already do? May I be let in on it, please?" she asked pointedly.

"I programmed the _Sabre_ to fire on any ship not broadcasting an Imperial transponder," Mara told her. "And the computer knows all Imperial aliases, too, so even a ship traveling incognito should be fine so long as it's on the Imperial register."

"Huh," Leia said. "That's actually kind of clever."

Mara scoffed. "You don't have to sound so surprised. You know, before you came along, I was known to perform the random complex task all by myself. You know, in my service as an _Emperor's Hand_." Mara added extra inflection on the last two words. "I was doing wetwork when you were still giggling about boys."

Leia sighed. "You're right," she conceded. "I apologize. No offense intended, O Mighty Jade. I was just impressed, that's all."

"Yeah, okay," Mara said with a grumble. "I'm sorry, too. I guess I'm not really used to spontaneous compliments. I'm usually alone and I don't go around patting myself on the back."

Leia laughed. "Well don't get used to it. You probably won't get them very often."

The two women shared an amused glance and continued to trek through the dark, dank tunnel.

* * *

><p>Qu Rahn stood with his hands on his hips at the base of the <em>Klendathu<em>'s boarding ramp, just breathing in the fragrant woody air and the faint scent of ancient history. He could feel an immense power nearby unlike anything he'd ever felt before. Just about everything had a particular "taste" to it, a presence in the Force aligned either Light or Dark, positive or negative, black or white. But this—he could only describe it as _gray_, the absolute grayest sense he'd ever felt. His only explanation was that so many Jedi and Sith had died together that their Force signatures merged and became amalgamated, cancelling one another out and forming something truly neutral from such polarized components. So much death and so much power concentrated in one place had imbued the entire area with the Force; neither the Light Side nor the Dark Side prevailed, just the Force in its absolute purest form.

Taking a deep breath, he pulled his robes tight against the rain, which luckily seemed to be clearing up by the minute.

"Kyle," he called up into the ship. "We're close. You can feel it. Which means _they_ can, too. We've got to hurry."

Kyle Katarn appeared at the top of the ramp, triple checking his gear before descending with heavy footfalls to the ground.

"So just what is the plan exactly?" he inquired. "You sort of dodged the question before, but now that we're here, what now?" He slid a fully charged powercell into his disruptor rifle. "I mean, we got here first, but if the Sith really want the Valley, what's to stop them from taking it? We can't exactly move it or hide it and we _certainly_ can't defend it against the might of the Empire."

"Palpatine won't bring his soldiers," Qu Rahn said. "This is a matter between Force users."

"Fine," Kyle conceded, "But what about Palpatine _himself_?"

The old Jedi Master shook his head. "I don't know. All we can do is defend the Valley against him and hope the Force is with us."

Kyle raised an eyebrow. "You're joking, right? Please, tell me you're joking. We've got probably the most powerful Sith _ever_ coming for something we have and you're counting on _luck_ to get us through?"

"I don't believe in luck," Qu Rahn said sharply. "In my experience there's no such thing. We must have faith in the Force to guide us. We are all a part of its plan. Our destinies are already written."

Kyle shook his head. "No, Jedi. I've seen a lot in my life, _done_ a lot. And I've seen too much _not_ to believe in the Force. But I refuse to believe that my fate is set. The Force may flow through me, but it doesn't control me."

"Look around you," the Jedi said, extending his arms outwards. "Look at where you are; look at where you _were_. You have been captured by the Empire, by the _Sith_. You have been killed and resurrected countless times." Kyle winced. Qu Rahn continued. "You have managed to escape the inescapable. And now you find yourself on a lost planet that no one even remembers, let alone should be able to get to. How do you explain all of this? _Luck_?" He shook his head. "We are all guided by the Force, you more than most. This is your destiny, Kyle, whether you choose to accept it or not. The Force doesn't need for you to believe in its plan. It just needs you to have faith in its purpose."

"I think we should hurry," Kyle said, quickly changing the subject. Clearly he was getting nowhere with the Jedi and they didn't have time to argue. "No telling when they'll get here." He pulled out a datapad and marched past the Jedi towards the coordinates indicated on his screen. Qu Rahn just sighed and followed close behind, feeling the heavy weight of defeat before the battle had even begun.

* * *

><p>Darth Arisin trudged through the heavy forest, his deceased companion trailing close behind. So far, they hadn't encountered any indigenous life aside from a few birds here and there. None of the mysterious floating green creatures that were rumored to roam the planet. The cool air was scented with the sweetness of decaying plant matter, made all the more pungent by the recent rain. Of all the places he'd been recently, Ruusan was definitely the nicest. He tried to imagine what it would have been like a thousand years before, with the smoke from dozens of fires thick and stinging in the air.<p>

"We're very near," Kas'im spoke up. "I remember this area. Lord Kaan had scouted it as a potential fallback point." He pointed. "You see that large rocky outcropping through the trees there? That was to be Kaan's base of operations should our camp be overrun."

"I had forgotten that you've been here before," Arisin said, hacking his way through a tangle of thick shrubbery. Then he stopped and turned around. "It suddenly occurs to be that I never asked if you were corporeal or not. How extensive is your ability to interact with solid matter? I only now realized I haven't actually seen you _touch_ anything."

Kas'im bent down and plucked a dead leaf from the forest floor. "It would appear that I can," he said rather triumphantly.

"How about the Force? The Dark Lords on Korriban can still access it," Arisin offered. "I know you can sense it, but can you manipulate it as you could in life?"

"Let us see." The Sith Lord looked down at a large rotting log, half buried in the leaf litter. He squinted his eyes in concentration and the log began to shift, to rock back and forth and wiggle itself free from centuries of soil. After a moment, it stood upright for the first time in hundreds of years, sending insects scrambling for cover now that their home had been uprooted. Kas'im gave a delighted smile. "There!"

"What _are_ you?" Arisin asked.

"I couldn't tell you," Kas'im answered. "But I'd love to know what this means."

"It means you can help." Arisin turned back to the trail he was carving. "Presumably you can't be killed, which is an obvious advantage."

Kas'im started after him. "You mean to use me as blaster fodder?" he exclaimed indignantly.

"A Sith utilizes everything he has at his advantage, does he not?" Arisin counterd.

"Well, yes," the blademaster conceded. "It just isn't very nice." He sighed. "Alright. But if I'm killed again, I'm coming back to haunt you."

"What do you call _this_?" Arisin asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, I suppose you make a valid point," Kas'im admitted. "Come, let's not delay this any more. I believe we're very close now."

"Nervous?" Arisin inquired.

"My boy, I am already dead," Kas'im chided. "What in Chaos have I to be nervous about?"

"Well this _is_ where all of your friends died," Arisin pointed out, slashing through a particularly thick low-hanging branch. "And something strange happened to you. You have no way of knowing that whatever's here won't affect you."

"I suppose we shall just have to see," the Sith Lord said. "But in the mean time, I think it's best we hurry. We don't want our rivals getting there first."

Arisin nodded and quickened his pace. He felt the massive pull of the Force. He could find the nexus with his eyes closed now. It reached out to him; it called to him like a beacon. And if the other party included a Jedi, it would be calling to _them_ too.

Before long they arrived at a cave, a gaping maw in the heart of the forest, out of which spilled the purest, most intoxicating power Arisin had ever felt. The power was so great that it very nearly drowned out the presences of two beings somewhere inside. He couldn't determine if they had reached the source of the power yet, but he had to assume they had a significant enough lead that they were a serious threat. He also had to assume that if he could detect them, they could also detect _him_.

"C'mon," Arisin said, urging Kas'im forward. "You first. They're already inside and we have to assume they'll be prepared for us."

"This must be how Hoth and his Jedi felt," Kas'im muttered bitterly as he took his place ahead of Arisin. "Descending into the unknown, confident in only one thing, that the enemy awaited them and no one would be leaving."

"I appreciate ruminations, Lord Kas'im, but they aren't very helpful." Arisin extinguished his lightsaber but kept it held firmly in his hand, ready to spring into action at any second.

"Apologies, Lord Arisin," said the blademaster. "I didn't mean to unnerve you."

Arisin shot a look at the Sith Lord's back. "That was for making you take point, wasn't it?" He scoffed. "You didn't unnerve me. But I've never faced a Jedi before. I can't afford to be distracted. We can discuss the parallels of our journey to that of those who came before, but _after_ I've survived the mission."

"Lord Arisin, _life_ is a distraction," Kas'im told him in his teacher voice. "But your point is seen and understood. Again, I offer my apologies." After several dozen meters of silence, he spoke up again. "Out of curiosity, how _will_ you handle the Jedi?"

"I managed to defeat my father," Arisin answered quietly. "I'll figure something out."

Kas'im cleared his throat, an odd sort of action for a spirit. "You mean your father, the quadruple amputee with breathing problems and a love for you that prevented him time and time again from destroying you as his master and his duty dictated?" Arisin had explained to the ancient Sith the rise and fall of Darth Vader during the trip from Lehon.

"No," Arisin said defensively, "my father, the Jedi's 'Chosen One' and most powerful Jedi the Order ever saw."

Kas'im scoffed. "Who just happened to be a cripple with a breathing problem and feelings for you which clouded his judgment by the time you got to him. Whatever he may have been, the man you fought was no threat to you no matter _how_ powerful he may have been."

Arisin stopped in his tracks. "What are you doing? Are you deliberately trying to make me angry?"

Kas'im stopped and turned around. "Yes," he said simply.

"Why?" Arisin demanded, blood pumping in his ears. He could feel his face growing hot.

"Because you need to realize something," Kas'im explained. "As powerful as your father may have once been, as many Jedi as he may have killed, he _chose_ not to kill you. You were his son. These Jedi before us have no warm feelings for you. They _hate_ you. They _want_ to kill you. You need to prepare yourself for a battle against foes who will not hold back at the last second."

"I realize that," Arisin snapped.

"Good," the blademaster said. And then, without missing a beat, he said, "Because they're right over there and the one with the blaster leveled at your head looks _very_ angry."

* * *

><p>There were only a few times in his long life when Darth Sidious could remember feeling anxious; his first day at University, his first public speech, when he sensed the Jedi assassination squad approaching his office, and the moments leading up to the declaration of his New Order. Sidious had always prided himself on keeping a level head when the droppings hit the turbine. Events change, things happen in ways you didn't plan for, and you adapt. And he had always been a master of adaptation. Nothing seemed to discourage him or worry him. But at now, as he raced through the dense jungle at a speed ridiculous for a man of thirty, let alone eighty-six years of age, he was genuinely nervous, an emotion he saved for those rarest of situations that lay outside his control. Right now, his apprentice was alone, facing a foe completely foreign to him. And while Sidious had the utmost confidence in Lord Arisin's abilities, even the fierce Lord Maul had been bested by a Padawan. And even at this distance, Sidious could sense that it was no Padawan who sought the Nexus.<p>

As he sped through the trees, he did a double take as he came across a log standing vertically out of the leaf-strewn floor. Standing alone, it looked quite out of place, as if it had been picked up and placed in that position purposely. However, he filed the curiosity away for another time and sprinted onward. He was very close now and he could sense that Lord Arisin had already confronted the Jedi. Though curiously, he sensed a _second_ Dark figure with him, definitely _not_ a Jedi. Very odd. He quickened his pace.

He followed the scent of the Force to the mouth of a large open gash in the forest floor; it was a large cave opening. From inside, the clash of lightsaber blades and blaster fire echoed down the black tunnels. The acoustics made it impossible to tell how deep the sounds were coming from, but the Force told him they were about a hundred meters straight ahead. Darth Sidious glared into the darkness and sneered. With a flick of his wrist, his electrum-plated lightsaber dropped squarely into his palm and its fiery blade hissed to life. With an angry growl, he dashed into the cave to join the fray.

* * *

><p>Ragnor Breyac swore as he ran, glancing down every few seconds to keep track of the two Imperial agents following him. How they'd found him he didn't know. How they'd made it past his network of turrets, he knew even less. What he <em>did<em> know was that they were here and he had to leave. _Now_.

The safehouse had been built atop a series of subterranean caves that spread beneath the foothills of the entire area for kilometers around. His escape route led through these caves and exited in the middle of the forest about a kilometer away. He'd never used it; he'd never even had a walkthrough. He was depending on the datapad currently held with a deathgrip in his left hand. Apparently, the caves were somewhat labyrinthine, but once he reached a large chamber with some sort of strange glowing orb thing, the exit was a relatively straight, hundred-meter stretch of tunnel. When he'd asked about the orb, his contractors didn't have any answers except that it gave off no heat, no sound, no radiation of any kind, and didn't even appear to exist on any of their scanners. In other words, while they didn't know what it _was_, they were relatively certain it wasn't dangerous. Probably.

His boots pounded on the floor almost as loudly as his heart pounded in his ears. He jabbed at his datapad screen, changing the view from a map to security holocam visual feed. He scrolled through the different cameras until he found the intruders, the very same Human females who had come after him on Coruscant. But this time they were accompanied by two Noghri, the very same Noghri Ric Andar used to employ, if memory served. The two women were in his private office, three levels above him. With a simple command, he sealed and locked every door between him and them. It wouldn't stop them, but it would slow them down. He glanced down just in time to see his droid cloven in two.

"Poor TeeCee," he said. "But better you than me." He quickly approached a heavy door with a built in security panel. He flipped down the keypad and entered an elaborate code. The door slid upwards, revealing a rough stone tunnel, a stark contrast to the smooth clean lines of the rest of the facility. With only a moment's hesitation, he set off into the caves, sealing the door behind himself and locking out the access panel. Now if he could get to the orb chamber, he was home free.

* * *

><p>Darth Arisin raised his blade to deflect three blaster bolts in quick succession at the advancing Jedi Master. This two-on-one set up was getting old fast and Kas'im seemed either unable or unwilling to assist.<p>

"Is that all you've got, boy?" Qu Rahn taunted as he easily swatted the energy bolts harmlessly into the bare rock. "I think Sidious is getting weak in his old age. And your father would be embarrassed."

Arisin smiled and flashed the Jedi a yellow-eyed look. "And is that what passes for Dün Möch these days?" he shot back. "You'll have to do better than that, Master Jedi."

"Do not waste your time with taunts, boy!" Kas'im called out. He seemed to be struggling to lift a large rock with the Force. Finally, he managed to launch it at Kyle Katarn, who easily dodged the slow projectile but was forced to lose the bead he had on Arisin's head.

Qu Rahn's amber blade met Darth Arisin's with a squeal and both men grunted with effort as they held the protesting blades together. Arisin disengaged and swung hard at the Jedi's torso but was stopped when Qu Rahn's boot connected squarely with his gut, knocking the wind out of him. As he stood doubled over, the Jedi brought his other boot around to smash into Arisin's temple, knocking him to the ground and making him see stars.

Though disoriented, Arisin managed to roll away as a golden energy blade plunged down nearly its full length into the rock atop which he'd just lain. He was able to land a kick of his own from the ground before finding his footing and retrieving his lightsaber, which had flown from his grip when he'd been kicked in the head.

"Arisin!" Kas'im called out just as the young Dark Lord's danger sense kicked in. He spun around to see Qu Rahn's glowing blade frozen just centimeters from impaling him below the ribs. The older Jedi was straining against some invisible obstacle keeping him from running the Sith through.

"Run!" Kas'im yelled, looking strained and dangerously weak. "Get to the Nexus! I can hold them here but I don't know for how long." He had a hand outstretched in Qu Rahn's direction and another towards Katarn, who likewise seemed frozen in place. "Go! I can only keep them here a few more seconds!"

Arisin nodded in thanks and took off in the direction of the Nexus.

"Apprentice!" a voice called out. Arisin snapped his head around at the new voice, a motion duplicated by the other three beings present.

"Master!" Arisin had to stop himself from recoiling, something the others didn't bother with. Sidious appeared in combat robes, not the heavy, draping robes he was usually seen shrouded in. But that wasn't what shocked them. The Emperor was, for the first time in nearly three decades, appearing without his deep hood, which normally kept most of his head and face covered in shadow. But now he allowed himself to be exposed, the whole of his face and the extent of his deformities now fully visible. Palpatine was like a living corpse, something reanimated after months of death. Even Lord Kas'im, who had never seen the Emperor before, seemed taken aback. The stunning effect was universal.

"Go, Apprentice," Sidious said, his humming red blade grasped firmly in his hand. "We will conquer the Nexus together."

Katarn and Qu Rahn, still frozen, exchanged panicked glances.

"What of them, Master?" Arisin nodded at the pair.

"He can hold them back," he said, motioning at Lord Kas'im. The Sith Master gave the Jedi a toothy grin; his yellow eyes seemed to glow in the dim light. "Use the Nexus," he instructed Kas'im. "Draw from its power to fuel your own. I can sense that you are already nearly one with the Force itself. It should come naturally. I want the Jedi to see this before they die."

Kas'im nodded, turning to Arisin. "This is your Darth Sidious?"

"It is," Arisin confirmed.

"Then I trust the Sith are in good hands. Go. I'll hold them as long as possible, but the dark skinned one is powerful. He's fighting my grip. Hurry!"

Arisin nodded in thanks. "Come, Master. It's this way." He ran off deeper into the cave, Sidious following close behind.

"You've done exceptionally well, Lord Arisin," Sidious called out as they ran.

"Thank you, Master. I've had wise teachers."

"Indeed," Sidious said. "Who is our friend back there? He's powerful, but the sense I get from him is…odd. He is a Sith spirit, is he not?"

Arisin gave a short chuckle. "I can tell you _who_ he is, but not what. He's Lord Kas'im, the—"

"The Blademaster, yes," Sidious finished. "I've heard of him. He disappeared, if memory serves. Never heard from again just before the Seventh Battle was waged right here."

"Lord Bane killed him on Lehon," Arisin confirmed, quickly explaining his time on the ancient and forgotten world, about the debris of the Star Forge, and how he had found Kas'im. And finally, he held up his new lightsaber for his master to see.

"Fascinating," Sidious said. "I believe we're very near—yes! There it is!"

The pair emerged into a large chamber, a dozen meters high and easily the same across, heavily studded with stalactites and stalagmites. Besides the tunnel from which they came, there appeared only one other way out of the chamber, a tunnel opening nearly opposite where they stood. The chamber itself was dominated by a large three-meter wide orb hanging motionless a meter off the ground. Its surface shimmered like liquid gold and it seemed to shine with its own internal glow, casting a soft light about the entire cavern.

"This is it, Master? The Nexus?" Arisin hadn't known what to expect. It was such a strange manifestation of the Force.

Sidious shook his head. "No," he said. "The Nexus is not a physical object. It is a concentration of the Force. This," he said, taking a cautious step forward, "is something else entirely." He reached a hand towards it. "It is acting as a focal point. The Nexus is _here_ but it is emanating through _that_."

"It's so powerful," Arisin commented. "I've never sensed anything like it."

"Nor I," Sidious, said. "Unless I am very much mistaken," he began, "this is what happens when such a powerful Thought Bomb is detonated in such close proximity to so many Force-users."

"How do you mean?"

Sidious explained, never taking his eyes off the glowing orb. "The Thought Bomb acted like a singularity, a powerful magnet drawing the Force out of everything in its blast radius. This is the result. There were several hundred Jedi and Sith on this very spot where we are standing when it was detonated. All of that Force power getting drawn in at one time must have concentrated it into _this_. This is _them_."

"Is it conscious?" Arisin wondered. "I mean, does it contain all of their…knowledge, their thoughts and personalities?"

Sidious shook his head. "I haven't a clue, Apprentice." For the first time, he broke eye contact with the sphere. "Let us find out together. Are you ready?"

Arisin nodded. They approached the sphere and probed it cautiously with the Force. The power it contained…it was like an instant high. The two Sith Lords drank it in.

"Follow my lead, Master," Arisin directed as he began the technique he had used on the Star Forge fragments. The two took positions squarely in front of the orb and raised their hands toward it.

Instantly, power began funneling into the duo of Sith Lords. The golden orb seemed to shimmer, almost vibrate, its surface rippling like waves on a smooth lake.

"Can you feel it, Master?" Arisin said with a strained voice. "The power."

"Yes, Apprentice." Sidious inhaled the power deeply, feeling it infuse his core and strengthen him. He felt his tired muscles renew, his aching bones fall quiet. "It's so pure, undiluted. It's unlike anything I've ever felt. It's—"

The Sith Master was interrupted by a blaster bolt splattering against the rock at his feet.

"Get away from there!" Another volley flew into the chamber from the dark tunnel they had just come through.

Suddenly Kas'im appeared beside the Sith out of thin air. "I'm sorry, my Lords. I held them as long as I could."

Sidious gave a wild grin. "That's quite alright, Blademaster." He brought his lightsaber up and lit it, red fire casting an eerie glow on his pale skin. "It has been far too long since my blade has tasted Jedi flesh."

Darth Arisin followed suit and lit his blade, bringing it up in a defensive posture, preparing for battle.

"Do not kill them right away, Apprentice," Sidious ordered. "I want them to witness the destruction of their precious Valley of the Jedi."

Taking up battle stances, the Sith prepared to engage the enemy who were mere meters away from entering the chamber. Their blood boiled with anticipation. Sidious found himself almost giddy with excitement. It had been a great many years since he had been able to taste action and now, he hungered for it like an addict. He looked over at his apprentice. "Fight well, Lord Arisin. Fight well and this day will be ours."

* * *

><p>Mara extinguished her blade and replaced the lightsaber on her belt.<p>

"Feel better now?" Leia asked, nudging the freshly bifurcated silver protocol droid out of the way, its edges still glowing red and sizzling. They had broken into the Vigo's safehouse only to find that, once again, he seemed two steps ahead.

"A little, yeah," Mara said. "Never was one for protocol."

"I've noticed."

"He has been here recently," Kay said as he and Drey slithered back into the office after securing the area.

"Well we know that already," Mara said impatiently. "Probably within the last hour. But he's not here _now_."

Dray spoke up. "No, the scent is strong. He was here minutes ago. Perhaps five or ten."

Kay pointed to the sealed door. "He went through that corridor."

The women shared a look. "What do you think the chances are that he left it unlocked?" Mara asked cynically.

Leia shrugged. "About as good as the chances are that your wampa friend was just looking for a dance partner."

"Funny," Mara said with a sour look. "Really, you should have your own act."

Suddenly, the door before them gave a loud clank as the locking mechanism slid into place. Likewise, the door that the Noghri has just come through slammed shut and sealed tight.

"Well, that answers _that_ question," Leia said, rolling her eyes. "Come on, let's get to work." She unclipped her lightsaber and lit the amethyst blade. "This door looks tough."

Mara brought up her own lightsaber and lit its magenta blade. She and Leia took up positions on either side of the door, just as they had the last time, and plunged the glowing blades into the dense metal. They followed the outline of the door along the frame, cutting a rough rectangle. The two women strained to slide their blades around the perimeter of the door, which was made of some sort of incredibly dense alloy that, much to their annoyance, seemed very efficient at resisting lightsaber blades. With some grunts and groans, and with a little help from the Force, they finished the last cut and pushed the slab of metal to the ground with a resounding thud.

"Fierfek!" Mara swore. "What's this place made of?"

"It is an alloy of durasteel and Mandalorian iron," Kay answered.

Mara turned to him. "What? How could you possibly know that?"

Kay brought a claw up to his face and tapped his blunt nose. "Even a cub can smell all of that _beskar_."

"Oh, well that's a handy talent you have, there," Mara said.

"It can be of use," Drey said. "I suggest haste. The Vigo's lead on us grows with every minute."

"He's right," Leia said. "And if every door is going to be as bad as this one was, we need to find a new way of getting through them."

"May I make a suggestion, Mistress Vader?" Kay asked.

"By all means," she told him eagerly.

The Noghri glanced down. "The floor smells of durasteel. You should be able to cut through it with little trouble."

"Yeah," Mara said enthusiastically. "That's not a bad idea! He probably went down anyway. This whole area is studded with caves. He probably has some sort of access to them from inside here." She dropped to one knee and plunged her lightsaber straight down, carving a large circle in the floor. The durasteel plug fell through to the next level below with a loud crash. "Let's go, kids. The Vigo's waiting and I'd hate to be late."

* * *

><p>"Oh, this is bad. This is very, very bad." Breyac found himself crouched behind a large rock just inside the chamber with the glowing orb. The only problem was, it seemed to be…occupied. Risking a peek, he saw five beings, four Humans and a blue-skinned Twi'lek—who seemed to be partially translucent, which struck Breyac as an odd thing even when presented with three lightsaber-wielding men and one man so heavily laden with weapons that he looked like he was taking on an army—and they were all trying to kill one another.<p>

He instantly recognized one of the Humans as Luke Skywalker. What had he called himself when he had addressed the Empire? Lord something or another. He looked different, paler and with striking yellow eyes, but it was definitely him. But the old man whom he fought beside threw him for a moment. He stifled a gasp when he finally recognized him: it was the Emperor! That ancient, shriveled Human was Palpatine himself! Skywalker (or Lord What's-His-Name) was engaged in furious combat with a dark skinned man whom he didn't recognize. The man, a Jedi he assumed, was frantically defending himself with a golden lightsaber, batting away the amazingly swift attacks coming from the boy. The Emperor was doing his best to avoid getting shot by the fourth Human, who seemed to be using a very powerful, very _illegal_ disruptor rifle.

The Black Sun Vigo watched as the Emperor did things he couldn't believe, flipping through the air, twirling his lightsaber so fast it was just a crimson blur. And all the while, he was smiling, cackling, as though he was having _fun_. The scene was so fascinating and terrifying to watch that he momentarily forgot that he was being pursued. He must have been sitting there for five minutes or more by the time he glanced down at his datapad and saw the two females approach the heavy door that led down into the tunnels. With those Noghri, they'd be able to track him in no time.

_Frak me!_ he swore to himself. How was he going to escape when the only way out meant going right through _that_? Then it hit him.

* * *

><p>The Emperor dove through the air as blaster fire tracked a bead on his position. The relative confines of the cave due to the many stalactites made this style of combat very difficult and dangerous. But he was Darth Sidious, master of the Force and all fighting styles. He had no equal in the galaxy.<p>

He landed and brought his blood-red blade up to deflect the onslaught back at Katarn, who was forced to dive for cover to avoid being hit with his own disruptor fire. Palpatine laughed and risked a glance at Lord Arisin, who was expertly dueling with the Jedi Master.

The Jedi was clearly the superior swordsman, but he couldn't hold a glowstick to Arisin's power and ingenuity. The young Sith was fighting with his full arsenal, at times tugging on the Jedi's legs to unbalance him or grabbing his blade with the Force, causing it to miss its mark. He had attempted a lightning attack, which Sidious noted was more refined now, but the Jedi was able to block the attack with his lightsaber and Arisin moved on to alternate methods.

Kyle Katarn was getting back to his feet and reaching for his rifle when Sidious turned back to him.

"You won't be needing that," he said and with a flick of his wrist, he sent the disruptor flying across the cavern. "You should have cooperated, Katarn. I could have given you so much. Now all you get from me is death. Permanent, this time." He raised his blade and leapt at the man.

"Kyle!" Qu Rahn cried out. With an immense Force shove, he launched Darth Arisin across the chamber and he leapt to Katarn's defense, intercepting the Emperor's blade as he landed.

"You must know you cannot win," Darth Sidious taunted.

"Just as you must know I cannot stop fighting you," Qu Rahn countered as he shoved the Emperor's blade away and jerked Katarn to his feet with the Force. Kyle stood behind the Jedi, protected from the Emperor's advances.

"Yes, your ridiculous Jedi stubbornness," Sidious scoffed. "Little wonder your kind were so easy to destroy. In all your narrow-minded, inflexible philosophy, you refused to change, to recognize your weaknesses and learn from them."

"Oh, I think I've learned a thing or two," Qu Rahn said as he dove to the side, revealing Kyle with a blaster leveled at the old man's chest.

Palpatine's eyes widened. "You cannot—!" he cried before the blaster bolt tore through him, burning through cloth, flesh, and bone, before slamming into the stone behind him. He was knocked clear off his feet by the impact, his lightsaber deactivating and tumbling from his limp fingers.

"MASTER!" Arisin shrieked as he saw Darth Sidious collapse to the ground across the chamber. His master's death felt like an explosion in the Force, hitting him hard in the gut. "NO!" He lit his blade and, fueled with rage and grief, he prepared to launch himself at his master's killers when two disruptor bolts caught him in the back and dropped him to the ground.

The Jedi gasped, as though they themselves had been shot. Searching in the direction of the shots, they saw a red-skinned humanoid, a Zeltron with a large bruise on his face, standing at the entrance to the second tunnel. He held the rifle Palpatine had torn from Kyle's hands and tossed aside.

"I was trying to work out just how my escape would work when suddenly, it hit me," Breyac said, dropping the rifle and gingerly touching his swelling cheek. "Literally."

"Who are _you_?" Katarn choked out, aghast.

Breyac shook his head. "In about five minutes, it won't matter. Two Imps are on their way here now and they have some very unpleasant friends with them. We gotta get out of here and seal this place off so they can't follow."

Kyle nodded in agreement. "I've got concussion charges. Should do the trick." He turned to Qu Rahn. "What about that thing?" He nodded to the sphere.

"The Sith are dead," he told him. "It's no longer a threat. Once you seal the chamber, it should be safe."

"You sure they're dead?" Kyle asked.

Qu Rahn nodded. "Oh yes. I felt their deaths very strongly. As you should have, as well."

Breyac sighed impatiently. "Can we _please_ get out of here now?"

Qu Rahn nodded and extinguished his blade. Kyle tossed him a charge, which he secured to the side of the entrance tunnel. Kyle placed one directly opposite of it and armed them both with a remote.

"Alright," Katarn said. "Come on. I'll detonate once we're out. It should seal up the tunnel pretty solid."

The three unlikely companions ran through the tunnel and burst out into the forest, which was so quiet and peaceful, completely unaware of what had taken place so far underground. Kyle triggered the charges and the ground shook with muffled explosions. A sudden rush of dusty air was exhaled by the cave mouth moments later. Satisfied, the trio set off back to the ship.

"It's done," Kyle said when they got back. "It's finally done." He started to climb the boarding ramp.

"No," Qu Rahn said, looking at Kyle, his eyes wide with horror. He pressed a hand against a landing strut for support. "No," he repeated. "It's worse now than ever!"


	6. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

Darth Arisin awoke with a gasp, filling his lungs with dusty air like a drowning man. The first thing he noticed was intense pain in at least two areas of his back. The next was the unavoidable fact that he appeared to be quite buried. What happened?

"Luke!" He heard his name from somewhere, but it sounded far away, muffled. He could feel the debris on top of him shifting as someone tried to uncover him. Suddenly his senses cleared. He felt fire running through his veins. They'd killed his master; the Emperor was dead! He reached deep inside himself and willed the tons of rubble off in one smooth motion. There was a startled yelp as whoever was on top of the pile was forced out of the way.

Once clear of the debris, the Sith Lord stood and brushed himself off. He surveyed the chamber; the cavern was in shambles. In addition to the entrance being completely caved in, nearly all the stalactites and stalagmites had been wrenched free and tossed about, littering the floor. The cave was still illuminated, but it seemed different somehow. He soon saw why.

"Leia." His sister stood before him holding a glowstick. Her clothes were filthy, leading him to suspect she had been the one digging through the rubble to get to him.

"Luke!" she cried and through her arms around his neck, pulling him in for a tight hug. "You were dead!" she said with a sniffle.

"It's true," said a red-haired woman. Mara Jade, he guessed. She appeared to be crying, too, her tears tracing clean streaks through the dirty smudges on her face. "She sensed it. Just like I sensed—"

"The Emperor," Arisin finished.

Jade nodded and turned back to what she was doing. She was sifting through the debris, probably looking for the Emperor's body.

"What happened, Luke?" Leia asked. Tears rolled freely down her cheeks.

"Katarn," the Sith answered venomously. "He had a Jedi with him. We were trying to stop them from destroying the Nexus. We fought; the Emperor was killed when Katarn shot him through the chest. And I…" he shook his head. "I don't remember. I saw the Emperor go down, I went to go after them, and then I woke up, buried."

"They planted charges," Jade said. She pointed to the entrance tunnel. "They collapsed the tunnel and sealed the chamber after they left." She wiped her nose with her shirtsleeve. "Looks like Breyac escape with them."

"Breyac? Your target?" Arisin asked. "He was _here_?"

Leia nodded. "His safehouse is built into these hills. He has an escape tunnel that connects to this cave system. This looks to have been his way out."

"I bet he killed you," Mara offered. "Look at where you were and how you were positioned." She pointed to where he'd been laying. "Your back was to the tunnel we came through, the _only _other tunnel connected to this cavern. He must have come across your fight and hunkered down here, trying to figure out how he was going to get past you. He sees the Emperor go down, sees that your back is to him and you're distracted. He takes his chance and shoots you in the back. You never saw it coming."

Arisin shook his head. "But if I died, if I was really dead, how am I alive _now_?"

"I think I can answer that," said a weak voice.

Arisin, Leia, and Mara all snapped their heads around to the voice that had startled them. Two Noghri, whom Arisin hadn't seen before, rushed forward with sickle-shaped blades drawn.

"Master Kas'im!" The Twi'lek blademaster had appeared before them, looking very weak and considerably less solid than before.

Leia raised and eyebrow. "You know him?"

The Noghri stopped. "He has no scent," one of them commented. He gave a shudder, as if deeply disturbed.

Kas'im gave a half-hearted chuckle. "No, I supposed I wouldn't. I'm long dead, you silly creatures. Dead and buried thousands of light-years away from here on yet another forgotten and supposedly lost world." He gave Arisin a wry smile. "I think the words 'lost' and 'forgotten' are starting to lose their meaning these days."

Leia looked to her brother for explanation. He held up a hand. "Another time, I promise." He turned back to Kas'im. "Explain. You disappeared during the battle. I can't remember you once you warned us that they were coming. And now you're…fading."

The Sith shook his head. "There was nothing I could do. The more power I exerted, the stronger the orb pulled on me. I was nearly lost when I held the Jedi back as long as I did. I'm afraid that action sealed my fate. The orb's pull was too strong."

"Orb? What orb?" Mara asked.

Arisin's eyes bulged. "The orb is gone! Where is it?"

"When you died, you were being drawn into it. That's what it did; it attracted the Force like a magnet. When you died, your essence in the Force was drawn into it. I was able to intercept you, to repulse the attraction, but at great personal cost." He bent down low to pick up a rock and his hand passed through it like smoke.

"You—"

"I'm nearly gone," Kas'im said with a nod. "It's taking incredible will power for me to linger this much. I haven't a lot of time left."

"But—" started Arisin.

"Shut up and listen, boy!" the spirit snapped harshly. "When I directed your spirit back into your body, I acted against the power of the orb, or whatever has kept the orb here all these centuries. Whatever it was, I shattered the power that contained it and the energy was released. Into _you_. You were connected to it at the time, and it connected to the Nexus. I believe, through the orb, you have absorbed all the power of the Nexus."

Mara cocked her head to the side. "Yeah, come to think of it, I can't sense that big power at all anymore, and before it was totally overwhelming. It's all in you, just like he said. You got the whole thing." She looked at the Sith Lord as if he had suddenly sprouted an extra head.

"That is not entirely accurate," said a new voice. Huge slabs of rock shifted and moved aside to reveal the Emperor, quite alive and well, save for a nearly healed blaster burn that could be seen through the hole scorched in his clothes. In fact, he looked _renewed_. They almost didn't recognize him. His skin was a healthy pink and smooth. His facial deformities were entirely gone and his appearance now was as it had been decades ago before his encounter with the Jedi of the Old Republic.

"Master!" Arisin cried out in shock. "But how?" Confusion was written all over his face.

"The same as you, Lord Arisin," Sidious replied, even his voice sounding stronger by the syllable. "Only _I_ didn't require a spirit guide."

"Master!" Jade nearly sobbed. "I—I lost you." Fresh tears welled up in her eyes.

"Stop that!" the Emperor commanded sharply. Mara stiffened at the rebuke. "Do not let your emotions get the better of you, Jade. You are better than that."

Arisin rubbed his forehead, still trying to process exactly what had happened to the two of them. "Master, if you survived the same way I did, then that would mean that—"

"That I was likewise connected to the orb and by default, the Nexus? Yes," Sidious confirmed. "When it shattered, due to _both_ of our efforts," he said to the still fading Blademaster, "the power was split between us. Our bodies became like the orb, drawing in the energies like a magnet. This Nexus is now quite dead," he said. "But we, _we_ are now more powerful than ever!"

* * *

><p>"I just don't see why we couldn't have used <em>my<em> ship. It's much more comfortable."

"And a lot _shinier_, Vigo. Shiny things tend to draw attention to them." Kyle and Breyac were sitting in the passenger lounge of the _Klendathu_ having the same argument for what must have been the fifth time. It had been two days since their escape from Ruusan and the fugitive head of Black Sun had not shut up the entire time.

"But what are you guys so afraid of?" Breyac asked. "I mean, what if he's wrong?" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to the sealed bridge door, behind which Qu Rahn and his droid piloted the ship. "Those two looked pretty dead to me. Jedi boy even said they were dead. _And_ you blew up the cave pretty good. They couldn't still be alive."

Kyle shook his head. "No," he said defiantly. "He said he sensed them _alive_ right when we got back to the ship. He said he sensed them not only alive, but also more powerful than ever, and that he couldn't sense the Nexus anymore. And I think I may have sensed it, too."

"You think?" Breyac said skeptically. "You either did or you didn't, my friend."

"I'm not sure," Kyle admitted. "I'm not trained in the Force. But I felt _something_. And he's a Jedi Master. If he says he felt them alive, he must have."

"Yeah, well I felt something, too. _Relief_," Breyac said. "And now annoyance. Where are we going, anyway? Why can't we at least stop long enough to jack into the HoloNet and _see_ if they're alive or dead?" He sighed and muttered. "On _my_ ship we could check the HoloNet _in_ hyperspace."

Kyle stood and drew his sidearm, which he pointed at Breyac's head. "If I hear one more word about your kreffing ship, I swear I'll part your hair the hard way."

The bridge door slid open with a hiss and Jedi Master Qu Rahn stepped out into the cabin. "What's going on here, fellas?" he asked calmly.

"He's gonna kill me! He's crazy!" Breyac yelled, holding up a seat cushion as a makeshift shield.

Qu Rahn turned his head to look at Katarn. "Kyle, is this true?"

"He was talking about his ship again."

"Oh," Qu Rahn said. "As you were, then." He turned to reenter the bridge. "By the way," he said over his shoulder, "we'll be arriving in ten minutes, so if you make a mess, please clean it up quickly."

Breyac lowered the seat cushion. "We'll be where?" he asked. "I'm going crazy cooped up in here. And so is Trigger over here," he said nodding to Kyle.

"Tatooine," Qu Rahn answered. "I'm meeting with an old friend who may be able to help us. Then we leave for Ossus."

"Ossus? What's on Ossus?" Breyac asked.

Qu Rahn turned around and gave the vigo a hard stare. "The fall of the Empire."

**Thank you to all of my dedicated readers! So concludes book 2 of my trilogy. Thanks again for all your support and awesome comments. I hope to see you all back for the exciting conclusion!**

**-Josh**


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